Among those agreements are plans to build 12 advanced modular reactors in Hartlepool, the result of a partnership between X-Energy and Centrica – a project worth an estimated £40bn. Nottinghamshire’s Cottam coal-fired power station will also see a new lease of life, powering advanced data centres with small modular reactors (SMRs) in a deal worth £11bn.
A clutch of other agreements were welcomed by prime minister Keir Starmer, who said in a statement: “These major commitments set us well on course to a golden age of nuclear that will drive down household bills in the long run, while delivering thousands of good jobs in the short term.”
For the UK engineering sector, the hype seems to match the reality. The partnership “answers the most basic question for engineers in the UK: what’s next?” says Josh Freed, senior vice president at Third Way, a Washington DC-based thinktank.
“For a long time – at least since 2018 – the answer to that was a muddle of maybe HS2, maybe expansion of Heathrow, and maybe nuclear,” he explains. “Now, the UK has a definitive answer: we’re building a lot of new, advanced nuclear in specific locations by specific companies.”
The deals were praised by Andrew Bowfield, civil nuclear expert at the Manufacturing Technology Centre (MTC) in Coventry, as a pivotal moment that “moves the dial” on engineering – and particularly nuclear – in the country. They could even kickstart a “nuclear renaissance” in the UK, Bowfield says.
The arrival of American firms in the UK is a benefit of challenges on the other side of the Atlantic, he continues. “There are multiple reasons why US companies are coming to the UK, one of which the US supply chain is not able to provide what they need,” he says.
That is a positive for the UK engineering sector, Freed says, which can now invest the necessary time, effort and resources into identifying where there are gaps that need to be filled to carry out those projects.
Those gaps will be identified by the industry, Bowfield says. “We need a more coordinated response in terms of how British manufacturers may supply into the nuclear sector,” he explains, allowing the industry to capitalise on the opportunity it has secured.
“There’s going to be a global opportunity, both near abroad and internationally, for the UK engineering and manufacturing market to really reestablish itself in that top echelon of manufacturing value add, which is where I think we can play.”
Beyond industry engagement, the coordinated response also needs an aware, interested government pursuing the ultimate end goal – something that is not guaranteed, given the many fronts the government is fighting on.
“The big question, which the engineering sector will also need to remain diligent on, is whether all the parties involved – and especially the governments – stay sufficiently focused so they deliver these deals and are on a path to put steel in the ground,” says Freed.
“That’s a universal challenge for national governments in the west in the 2020s, and I think it has become part of what broader society needs be vigilant about.”
The UK is in a better position than the US to carry that out, says Bowfield, because of Great British Energy, the new publicly owned energy company. “We’ve heard from the regulator that they are pro-innovation,” he adds, marking another tick in the box for meaningful change in the industry.
Freed believes it is possible for the two governments to stay the course – not least because they are both putting nuclear at the heart of their energy strategies, in part to power the AI revolution. “They need it to succeed, so they’ll put the effort into it,” he says.
But there are two wildcards for both countries, Freed reckons: “One is whether either can correctly calibrate the risk their civil service tolerates to move quickly and correctly. Too much risk in the US, for example, could result in regulatory chaos. Too little risk could just delay and delay projects,” he explains.
“The other is how cloudy the financial horizons are. Will the money be there in the end to get this done? I’m an optimist, but it’s not a certainty.”
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