EDITOR’S OPINION: Security in an uncertain world
1 June 2025
With eight of the nine nuclear reactors currently operating in the UK set to close by the end of the decade, it would appear that the government’s recent pledge to invest £14.2 billion in Sizewell C has come just in the nick of time. The Suffolk site was first flagged up as a potential location for a nuclear power plant by the then Labour government in 2009 and it has only taken another 16 years and seven prime ministers to finally push through the necessary investment.
In making the announcement energy secretary Ed Miliband said it would herald a new “golden age” of nuclear investment, but it is estimated that it will be another 10 years before Sizewell C is up and running. Such long-term dividends perhaps offer a clue as to why successive administrations have dithered when it comes to giving their full backing to nuclear energy. After all, why run the risk of courting opposition and upsetting various interest groups when the rewards of that initial investment are only going to be felt when you’re probably going to be out of office and writing your memoirs?
When it does finally deliver, we are promised that Sizewell C will provide enough energy to power the equivalent of six million homes with low-carbon electricity. This might represent a relatively small percentage of the country’s total energy needs, but the crucial benefit is that it will be a reliable source of a steady supply of electricity that will be readily available to meet demand from the grid, providing a vital back-up to the fluctuating power that is likely to be generated by renewable sources such as wind and solar. Under its Clean Power 2030 vision, the government is aiming for nuclear, biomass, renewables and energy from waste to collectively contribute 95% of the UK’s electricity generation and, with electricity demand predicted to at least double by 2050, our non-fossil fuel sources of energy are going to need all the help they can get.
Demonstrating further support for nuclear energy, the government has also revealed that Rolls Royce has been selected as the preferred bidder to build the UK’s first small modular reactors. It is hoped that the SMRs will provide homegrown energy to the equivalent of 3 million homes and, together with the Sizewell C project, will mean that more new nuclear will be delivered to the grid by the 2030s than over the previous half century.
Avoiding a reliance on imported energy is clearly a major motivator behind these investment decisions and undoubtedly the increasingly unpredictable world we live in has helped to spur the government into action. Would it have pressed ahead with nuclear energy if Russian aggression hadn’t set energy prices rocketing? Such events suggest that we can never look too far ahead with much certainty, but a failure to invest in the future is always likely to result in some unexpected and unfortunate consequences.
• Chris Jones, managing editor
