Nuclear Power Is ‘Essential’ Part of Net Zero Plans, Says Miliband

Energy Security and Net Zero Secretary Ed Miliband arrives in Downing Street for a Cabinet meeting in London, England, on Oct. 15, 2024. Ben Whitley/PA Wire

Nuclear power has an “essential role” to play in the government’s net zero strategy, Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero Ed Miliband has said.

In a speech given at the Nuclear Industry Association’s conference on Thursday, Miliband said that the UK needs “homegrown, clean energy,” coming from nuclear, wind, solar, batteries, tidal stream, hydrogen, and carbon capture.

“Nuclear has a particular role in providing clean, stable and reliable power,” he said, adding that it was important not just for the green agenda, “but for energy security and affordability reasons.”

Earlier this year, the National Energy System Operator’s report into green energy pathways said that nuclear would play an important role for the UK achieving zero carbon energy production by 2030.

‘Door Is Open’

One of the technologies that the government has gotten behind are small modular reactors (SMRs). SMRs are smaller versions of water-cooled reactors which can be manufactured and transported to and installed at the sites where they are needed.

Great British Nuclear, the independent sister company to Great British Energy, has already started contract negotiations with four bidders for the UK’s SMR programme, with Miliband saying the final decisions will be made in Spring 2025.

The minister said, “It’s early days but we should be open to the potential of SMRs to power the fourth industrial revolution, just as coal powered the first.”

He told nuclear energy industry professionals: “My message is clear: if you want to build a nuclear project in Britain, my door is open.

“My department is listening. We want all your ideas for projects that can work and provide value for money.”

Plants Will Stay Open Longer

Miliband gave the speech after EDF Energy confirmed it would extend the lives of four of the five nuclear power plants it is operating beyond the original decommissioning dates.

Heysham 2 in Lancashire and Torness in East Lothian will keep producing for an additional two years, to March 2030. Heysham 1, which is also in Lancashire, and Hartlepool in Teesside will produce power until March 2027, an additional year.

The extension of the four plants, which all have advanced gas-cooled reactors, will sustain 3,000 jobs across the country.

EDF already said earlier this year that it aims to keep Sizewell B in Suffolk running until 2055. Sizewell B, currently the UK’s only pressurised water reactor, was originally due for decommissioning in 2035.

The French company currently operates Britain’s entire fleet of five working nuclear power stations, with works ongoing to decommission some plants and develop others.

A nuclear reactor is being build at the Hinkley Point C nuclear power station in south-west England, on April 27, 2023. Daniel Leal/AFP via Getty Images

Work is currently underway to build the system at Hinkley Point C, which had its first of two reactors installed this week.

Miliband confirmed during his speech on Thursday that the Budget has allotted £2.7 billion in funding to continue the development of the Sizewell C plant.

Divided Opinion

During Miliband’s speech, he said he had believed the UK needed to extend nuclear power generation when he was last energy secretary in 2009—an opinion he admitted at the time was “a relatively controversial position, with parts of the environmental movement deeply opposed to nuclear.”

Miliband conceded that this was still true in some parts of the green movement, but said he believed the “debate has shifted.”

Parts of that green movement still opposed to nuclear include Friends of the Earth and the Green Party.

The Green Party states in its manifesto that it seeks a phasing out of nuclear energy, which is calls “unsafe and much more expensive than renewables.”

The party also says it objects to the nuclear power industry because it says it is “inextricably linked” to nuclear weapons production—a position shared by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.

By contrast, Reform UK calls for fast-tracking “clean nuclear energy” with new SMRs, “built in Britain.”

Miliband’s and the new Labour government’s position on nuclear energy is a continuation of previous Conservative administrations, which maintains that nuclear energy and the storage of nuclear waste is safe.

In 2022, then-prime minister Boris Johnson said that the UK should “go nuclear, and go large,” in order to attain energy security.