Artist impression of an aerial view. Credit: Rolls-Royce Industrial giant Rolls-Royce will lead a consortium to build and place small modular reactors in former UK nuclear sites. The world is in dire need of low-carbon energy. Rolls-Royce stated that they are leading the UK consortium in developing an inexpensive power plant to generate electricity with a small modular reactor. This is an intelligent approach to meeting our future energy requirements. SMRs that are nuclear-powered will measure approximately 1.5 acres within a acre area — roughly one 16th the size of large power stations like Hinkley Point. The reactors would be priced at PS1.8bn each and will produce an estimated 440MWe electricity. This is enough power to run a city as large as Leeds for six decades. The UK National Nuclear Laboratory (NNL), in a study, found that there will be a UK market for seven gigawatts of SMR power stations by 2035. There is also potential to expand this number by 2050.. Rolls-Royce claims that its SMR designs “supply electricity to the grid in an efficient manner at lower costs to the taxpayer, consumer, and generators of electricity that are at least as inexpensive (per MW) than power produced by large-scale reactors.” Further opportunities exist for SMR power plants in other countries such as the UK. In a BBC interview, Paul Stein, Rolls-Royce’s chief technology officer stated that prefabricated parts were the key to reducing the costs of nuclear power stations. He said that this was possible because they use digital welding and robotic assembly. Paul Dorfman, a University College London professor, said that the potential costs of module assembly over custom-built on-site construction might be exaggerated. He warned that production line errors could lead to common defects and spread throughout a fleet of reactors. This can be costly to correct. It’s much more economical to construct one 1.2GW unit than several 100MW units.
Rolls-Royce will install small modular reactors in the UK.
