Does Miliband’s ‘golden age of nuclear’ blind the UK to a future renewable dream?
By Eve Handley
With the conclusion of COP30, the ‘Just transition’ initiative emplores countries to commit to clean energy, phasing out fossil fuels once and for all. With countries such as Brazil leading the way with low-carbon innovations, it’s time the UK stepped up its game and join the forefront of renewable energy pioneers. With this would come the challenge of sufficiently meeting the rising energy demands of the country via focusing on low-carbon, renewable alternatives to stabilise the energy grid without skyrocketing energy bills. ‘Renewable energy’ to most brings images of wind farms and hydroelectric dams – for Energy Secretary Ed Miliband, ‘renewable energy’ means nuclear power plants… not quite giving the same connotations of ‘environmentally sustainable’ as some may hope for in a clean energy future of the UK.
“The golden age of nuclear in this country” is Miliband’s promise, according to the government, as he launches the “biggest building programme in a generation”. The former Labour leader speaks of an ambitious project, designed to redefine the UK, revitalise British industry and deliver “clean, secure, and sovereign power”. Despite the public conscience of nuclear disasters such as ‘Chernobyl’, Miliband assures us that the building of Small Modular Reactors – SMRs – on the first site at Wlyfa, Anglesey, is a historic moment in strengthening the UK’s energy independency and security. Whilst most renewable energy sources are intermittent in their output and dependent on specific environmental conditions, the government states that nuclear energy is stable and energy dense, providing 3,000 jobs and powering the equivalent of 3 million homes. The SMR plant is billed as a turning point for Anglesey states Prime minister Sir Keir Starmer, after “years of neglect and inertia”, promising to redefine the future of the locals, boost jobs, supply chains and regional infrastructure. With the signing of Rolls-Royce investing £2.5 billion, the Wlyfa plant is set to come online in the 2030s with capacity for 8 further SMRs – the first step in an ambitious nuclear programme. Miliband argues this is the cornerstone of the UK’s energy strategy: scalable, clean, and free of greenhouse-gas emissions. However, despite the positive feedback for SMR site locations, critics continue to raise concerns about the safety and environmental impacts.
SMRs must not become a shiny ‘band-aid’ to mask the repercussions of our consumerist society and wasteful patterns of production
SMRs don’t emit carbon dioxide on any fraction of the scale of carbon-fuelled power plants, but they still generate nuclear waste, presenting ongoing challenges for safe storage and disposal. Moreover, Wylfa’s coastal location, with its exposure to strong winds, offers clear potential for faster and cheaper renewable wind energy, raising the question of why these natural conditions are not being utilised. Some argue it is almost comical to invest billions in SMRs when the site itself is ideal for wind and wave energy—as if turning a blind eye to nature’s own solutions. SMRs alone offer only mitigation. Achieving rapid cuts in emissions to limit global warming, requires collaboration across all clean energy technologies, including wind and wave.
SMRs could provide the UK with a competition advantage in regard to energy security, but these benefits are largely domestic. This risks deepening global inequalities, leaving vulnerable countries, particularly those without the resources to access or afford technologies such as SMRs, behind in the transition away from fossil fuels. SMRs must not become a shiny ‘band-aid’ to mask the repercussions of our consumerist society and wasteful patterns of production. COP30 underlines the need to reshape both actions and attitudes to reduce dependency on fossil fuels globally.
This leaves us with a more complex challenge than SMR projects alone can resolve. A holistic approach is needed; one in which countries like the UK can lead bottom-up change, act less self-interestedly, and support a global transition towards an equitable future. The ‘golden age of nuclear’ threatens to be a superficial and short-term blip on our climate timeline if deeper issues are not addressed: reducing energy usage, ending consumerist pressures on vulnerable countries, and removing power from exploitative corporations. SMRs may be a step in the right direction toward a clean energy future, but a meaningful global transition and the eradication of environmental injustice requires far broader change.
Image: Markus Distrelrath via Pixabay
