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Alan Richards's avatar

Thanks for a great article. Building a strategic uranium reserve should be a national priority but who could take such a decision. Nuclear policy like many important decisions in the UK has been handed to a quango called Great British Nuclear. They won’t be taking a final investment decision on SMRs until 2029, which is the end of the next Westminster political cycle.

“GBN has launched the next phase of the SMR technology selection process and invites SMR vendors to register their interest. This is an important next step in identifying those companies best able to reach a project Final Investment Decision (FID) by the end of 2029, which could result in billions of pounds of public and private investment in SMR projects.”

Meanwhile according to the Tekegraph Rolls Royce CEO Tufan Erginbilgic is promising to build his first SMR project in Europe, before the UK.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/02/22/rolls-royce-boosted-post-pandemic-jump-demand-jet-engines/

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SmithFS's avatar

Back when the UK was considering a new reactor for Hinkley Point, GE offered to build PRISMs that would burn the UKs excess reactor grade plutonium and SNF, which they claimed they really wanted a solution for. At a much lower electricity cost than the French EPR boondoggle, the most expensive, poorly designed GenIII reactor on the planet. They could have gone with the South Korean APR-1400 at a far lower cost for a far better reactor, as the UAE did. Of course they would have had to have the cojones to tell the EU dictatorship to F-OFF and the meddlesome Austrian government should have been sued for maybe $100B. After sending the Austrian ambassador home with a good swift boot to his rear end and told never to come back. Unfortunately the British government woozed out, as usual.

http://prismsuk.blogspot.com/

They had an excellent SMR design in the UK, Moltex Stable Salt Reactor, which Pratt's analysis concluded it would be the cheapest electricity in Britain. And would run on the spent nuclear fuel the Government is always whining about, that they need to do something with. And they were not allowed to develop them in the UK. So they had to move to Canada where they have passed their 1st stage licensing. And this while the UK gov't claimed to have an SMR program and were promoting their development. Lying, corrupt politicians.

'Self described elite' are 'deliberately DISMANTLING' Western democracy - Neil Oliver - YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATWG0bBWe_o

"'The time has come again to be rid of the whole rotten lot of them'. Neil Oliver says the 'self described elite' have been carefully and deliberately dismantling Western democracies and holding on to power for too long."

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