Atom is prematurely split in the ‘golden age’ transatlantic partnership | Nils Pratley
It had all been so harmonious two months ago.“Together with the US, we’re building a golden age of nuclear that puts both countries at the forefront of global innovation and investment,” purred the prime minister about the new “landmark” UK-US nuclear partnership.Now there’s an atomic split over the first significant decision.The UK has allocated Wylfa on the island of Anglesey, or Ynys Môn, to host three small modular reactors (SMRs) to be built by the British developer Rolls-Royce SMR.The US ambassador, Warren Stephens, says his country is “extremely disappointed”: he wanted Westinghouse, a US company, to get the gig for a large-scale reactor.
This quarrel is easy to adjudicate.The US ambassador is living in dreamland if he seriously thought the UK wouldn’t show home bias at Wylfa.This is the coveted site for new nuclear power in the UK because the land is owned by the government, which ought to make the planning process easier and quicker, and the site hosted a Magnox reactor until 2015, so the locals are used to nuclear plants.Since Rolls-Royce’s kit is the best national hope of reviving the UK’s industry with homegrown technology, of course there was going to be preferential treatment.None of which is to say the SMR experiment will definitely succeed in the sense of demonstrating cheapness (a relative measure in nuclear-land) versus mega-plants, such as Hinkley Point C, Sizewell C or the Westinghouse design.
Rolls-Royce oozes confidence about the cost-saving advantages of prefabrication in factories, but these have yet to be demonstrated on the ground.The point, though, is that the only way to find out is to get on and build.Rolls-Royce SMR’s only other order currently is from the Czech Republic for six units.Indeed, the criticism from some quarters is that the UK government has been too timid in ordering only three.If the batch-production is supposed to be the gamechanger on costs, goes the argument, then commit to a decent-sized batch at the outset.
The choice of Wylfa may help on that score in time, though.The site is reckoned to be big enough to hold an additional five SMR units eventually, on the top of the first three.Since each SMR is 470 megawatts, a full build-out would equate to more megawatts in total than the 3,200 from each of Hinkley and Sizewell.The sop to the US is that Westinghouse gets to compete for future large-scale reactor projects in the UK.It would probably have been a good idea to tell the ambassador in advance before he blew a fuse.
Reserving Wylfa for Rolls-Royce SMRs was the only sensible decision here.Hopes that SMR technology will become a major export-earner for the UK eventually are best treated with extreme caution at this stage.The first electricity from Wylfa won’t be generated until the mid-2030s, and the demonstration of falling costs with each additional unit can only come after that.There is a long way to go.But a good way to maximise your chance of success is to give the top site to your pet project.
The US would have done exactly the same.
Old is M Night Shyamalan at his best: ambitious, abrasive and surprisingly poignant
In August 2002, Newsweek boldly anointed the stern-faced man pictured on the cover of its splashy summer issue as “The Next Spielberg”. While some might have called this an unfair comparison to one of cinema’s most legendary figures, for a then 31-year-old M Night Shyamalan, it was a childhood dream come true. The Indian-born, Pennsylvanian-raised film-maker had whetted his cinematic appetite on the images of Jaws and Raiders of the Lost Ark, and for better or worse, would find himself chasing that same level of stratospheric fame in the early days of his career.Despite the initial acclaim of The Sixth Sense, though, Shyamalan’s reputation and audience goodwill would soon begin to nosedive as his idiosyncratic directing style rubbed against the grander ambitions of his movies. But after a temporary exodus from Hollywood and a retreat to his roots in independent cinema, Shyamalan finally returned to studio film-making in 2021 with the release of Old, a masterful high-concept thriller that rekindled the director’s longtime fascination with family, parenting and the mystifying possibility of the unknown
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Groundbreaking British Museum show set to challenge samurai myths
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The Guide #216: Celebrity Traitors was a watercooler-moment smash-hit – but how long will audiences stay faithful?
That’s it then. The curiously pristine SUVs are back in the garage, the cloaks are off to the dry cleaners and your favourite hits of the 80s and 90s are safe, for a few months at least, from those absurdly melodramatic cover treatments. Yes, The Celebrity Traitors is over, having served up a finale that had just the right amount of intrigue, double-crossing and slack-jawed looks to camera from the terminally outwitted. We won’t ruin things here for anyone who hasn’t watched it yet, but for a full spoiler-filled debrief you can read Lucy Mangan’s review of last night’s drama here.It was a fitting capstone to a remarkably successful first Celebrity Traitors outing
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