The global route to a nuclear future

Nuclear energy grew up in the command-and-control environment of world energy policy in the 1960s and 1970s. Decisions on plant mix were taken by government (or their proxies, the heavily regulated electricity ‘utilities’). Costs were passed on to captive customers who were required to take their electricity from these monopolistic utilities.  Many countries developed unique national nuclear technologies — even those which bought technology from elsewhere, such as France (from USA) and Finland (from USSR), would often modify the design for local use.  The UK combined both approaches, following a unique gas-cooled route for its second generation of nuclear plant, the Advanced Gas-Cooled Reactors (using four different variations for the seven stations eventually built), then buying an American PWR and spending £700m ‘Britifying’ it for the single unit built at Sizewell B.

Unsurprisingly, nuclear energy in the UK was not an economic success, without the economies of scale and learning curve effects which accompany the batch-building of similar designs of any technology.  When the centralised approach to electricity supply was replaced by market forces the heavily capital-intensive nuclear technology of the day proved entirely unattractive and no more nuclear stations were built for over a decade.

Things now look very different. Privatised and competitive markets have eroded the nationalistic approach to nuclear technology.  The next wave of nuclear energy will be based on four or five competing international designs, owned by the plant vendors and built under franchise across the world.  Assuming that governments do not step in to require major local variations, a global reservoir of nuclear skills and supply chains serving the construction of identical plants in a range of countries will develop.  UK firms will not be building unique UK designs — they will be buying in components and key skills from an enormous international market.

In this context the growing co-operation between France, Europe’s real nuclear experts, and the UK is of considerable importance.  In 2006, Tony Blair and Jacques Chirac established a regular Franco-British Nuclear Forum, involving representatives from government, industry and technical experts, to discuss matters of mutual interest; at the end of March 2008 Gordon Brown and Nicolas Sarkozy took things further, announcing intentions to co-operate on a new generation of nuclear power plants by sharing information on safety, security and waste disposal.  Liberalised markets, far from spelling the end of nuclear power, seem now to be creating a technology and an approach to project management which will see the reemergence of nuclear energy as a major global player in the fight against climate change and hydrocarbon resource depletion.

Malcolm Grimston is an associate fellow with the Sustainable Development Programme at Chatham House.