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Hydrogen and electric aircraft projects backed with fresh £113m of funding

Posted on February 7, 2023 by dishanth

The Department for Transport (DfT) and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) have today (7 February) announced the funding for the projects as part of their collaborative work to decarbonise the aviation sector.

Aviation accounts for around 3% of annual global emissions and, pandemic aside, its absolute emissions and share of annual global emissions have continued to increase over the past two decades. The UK Government has pledged that all airport operations and domestic flights should be net-zero in operation by 2040 and that all international flights should be net-zero by 2050.

For flights, the priority for the near to medium term for the Government is to improve efficiency and to scale the use of alternative fuels, often called Sustainable Aviation Fuels (SAFs). But, in the longer term, the Government sees emerging technologies including hydrogen-powered aircraft and electric aircraft playing a role.

Scaling these emerging technologies is the reason for the provision of the new funding, which is being made through the Aerospace Technology Institute (ATI). The funding announced today includes a blend of Government funding and private funding, totalling £113m.

£36.6m of the funding is going to a hydrogen engine project led by Rolls-Royce, developing the integrated powerplant architecture for a liquid hydrogen gas turbine.

A further £14.8m is being allocated to another hydrogen project led by Rolls-Royce, under which experts are developing the combustor element of a liquid hydrogen gas turbine. This project is called Hydrogen Engine System Technologies or HYEST for short.

Rolls-Royce and its consortium partners are also being allocated £31.4m for the liquid hydrogen gas turbine project, developing a liquid hydrogen fuel system for the turbine.

A statement on the Rolls-Royce website reads: “While hydrogen can be used directly as a fuel in a gas turbine, it is likely to start in the shorter haul segments, where the aircraft range is shorter.

“Given volume limitations attached to the storage of hydrogen and the limited power density of fuel cells, for long range, SAF fuelling gas turbines will remain the most likely solution moving forward. Hydrogen will offer options in shorter range segments and has the potential to progress onto larger segments, as the technology is proven and hydrogen fuel becomes more readily available.”

In announcing the new funding for hydrogen aircraft, the DfT and BEIS hailed their previous support of ZeroAvia, which completed the maiden flight of its largest hydrogen fuel cell aircraft to date last month. The 19-seater aircraft completed a ten-minute test flight from Cotswold Airport on 19 January.

Electric aircraft

Also receiving funding today is Vertical Aerospace, which is developing a prototype propulsion battery for electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft. The Government has today announced £30.8m of funding.

Vertical Aerospace celebrated “wheels up” for the first time in September 2022, as its electric VX4 aircraft completed its first airborne testing. It is hoping to certify the model by 2025, enabling commercial flights of a pilot and up to four passengers. It is aiming for 100 miles of range and cruise speeds of 150mph.

As of September 2022, more than 1,400 conditional pre-orders for the aircraft had been placed. Clients include Virgin Atlantic, American Airlines, Japan Air and Air Asia.

The UK Government has been funding a range of projects in the eVTOL and drone space in recent years. Last April, Urban Air-Port opened what it claimed was the first fully operational eVTOL hub for a trial in Coventry with Government support. Aside from Urban Air-Port, the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund provided funding to more than 40 organisations through the Future Flight Challenge programme in 2021.

Business Secretary Grant Shapps said: “As the whole world moves to greener forms of aviation, there is a massive opportunity for the UK’s aerospace industry to secure clean, green jobs and growth for decades to come. Together with the companies that share our ambitions, we are determined to seize this moment.”

Jet Zero: New steps, old controversies

As well as announcing the new funding today, the Government is opening the latest round of consultations on its Jet Zero Strategy. This time, it is seeking evidence on the best way to decarbonise airport operations in line with net-zero by 2040.

The announcements have been timed to coincide with the next meeting of the Jet Zero Council at Boeing’s offices in London. The Council was set up to help shape the Strategy and facilitate its delivery.

Many green groups have previously accused the Government of letting the aviation industry lead the strategy based on what is financially beneficial to them, rather than what is recommended by climate scientists.

The UK Government’s own advisory body, the Climate Change Committee, has recommended a cap on passenger number growth for the UK to deliver its 2050 net-zero goal and interim carbon budgets. Yet Bristol Airport’s expansion has been permitted and, despite being ruled unlawful in the Court of Appeal, the Heathrow expansion is now pressing ahead. Shapps has supported Heathrow in this decision.

The Government’s approach is, instead, technology-based. It argues that it does not need to cap growth if new technologies scale on time and deliver the stated emissions savings. Today, once again, Shapps is using the rhetoric of “guilt-free” flying and of “not clipping the sector’s wings”.

Source edie

UK Government promises first ‘net-zero’ transatlantic flight in 2023

Posted on May 18, 2022May 17, 2022 by dishanth

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps unveiled the ambition today (14 May) after a meeting with executive decision-makers at airlines, fuel producers and aircraft manufacturers in the US this week. He said that the flight will “demonstrate the vital role that sustainable aviation fuels (SAFs) can play in decarbonising aviation”.

The flight will be powered using 100% SAF, with no conventional jet fuel in the mix. The Department for Transport (DfT) has asked the industry to prioritise the use of SAFs made using waste cooking oil and from household waste, as SAFs made using virgin biofuels can be detrimental in terms of land-use.

Currently, international regulations limit the level of SAF in blends to 50%. Flights can only be powered by blends exceeding 50% if the Civil Aviation Authority deems the aircraft suitable for a higher proportion. The DfT and industry will work to obtain this certification; Rolls-Royce has stated that it has already tested large, commercial aero engines using 100% SAF successfully.

SAFs purport to generate lifecycle emissions at levels significantly lower than conventional jet fuel. The DfT is forecasting a reduction of 70-80% in this case. To ensure that the transatlantic flight is net-zero, the DfT will work with the aviation industry to offset residual emissions.

A Department spokesperson told edie: “The Government will not prescribe the greenhouse gas removal approach to be utilised. Rather, it is anticipated that industry will make the decision based on a variety of factors such as innovation, availability, cost and time.”

Common offsetting approaches include financing nature restoration, financing the transition to renewable electricity, accelerating the uptake of cleaner cooking fuels in developing regions and financing nature protection. Offsetting using man-made carbon capture technologies is in its relative infancy, as there are not an abundance of large-scale projects in operation yet.

An approach to be expected

The UK Government’s approach to decarbonising aviation is broadly in line with that of industry body the UK Sustainable Aviation coalition, which is prioritising efficient planes with SAF use. Residual emissions can then be addressed using offsetting.

In terms of SAF supply, the DfT has asked the industry to collaborate to bring at least three commercial SAF production plants online in the UK by 2025. It has partnered with LanzaTech, Velocys and Philipps 66 to help deliver this ambition, through its Jet Zero Council.

The DfT is also mulling a SAF mandate. Its proposals involve requirements for jet fuel producers to ensure that at least 10% of their production annually is SAF by 2030, rising to 75% by 2050.

Many green groups have urged the Government to take a more diversified approach to achieving its net-zero targets for aviation, which are set at 2040 for airport operations and domestic flights, and 2050 for international flights. Concerns have been expressed that the industry and the Government are not giving enough focus to electric and hydrogen-powered aircraft which, while they will take longer to commercialise, may well result in far lower lifecycle emissions.

The Climate Change Committee’s (CCC) most optimistic forecast for the use of SAF in the UK’s aviation industry is for it to cover 7% of fuel supply in 2030. With this in mind, and with electric and hydrogen technologies for large planes still years from maturity, the CCC has recommended that the Government caps airport expansion and limits the growth in passenger numbers. The Conservative Party has, to date, been staunchly against this approach – as have most large businesses in the sector. Shapps has stated that SAF offers a pathway to “guilt-free” flights.

Source edie

Inside the lab that’s 3D-printing sleek car concepts for McLaren, Rolls-Royce, and more

Posted on March 23, 2022 by dishanth

When large automobile companies need to build a physical example of their designers’ latest flights of computer-rendered fancy, they call British fabrication specialist shop Vital Auto. Vital creates concept cars for a roster of clients that includes Rolls-Royce, McLaren, Jaguar, Lotus, Volvo, Nissan, Tata, and Geely.

The outfit uses two different methods to render these concepts into the physical world. The first is what is known as subtractive manufacturing. This is when a Computer Numerical Control (CNC) machine does the carving, following a software model of the part to know what to carve away. Commonly the process starts with a solid block of aluminum and the machine whittles a massive block of metal down to a finished component.

The second is 3D printing, which, in contrast, is additive manufacturing. This is when parts are made by gradually adding layers of material until enough have accumulated that there is a finished object. Additive manufacturing can be more efficient than subtractive manufacturing because it doesn’t produce a pile of aluminum shavings to be recycled, and it has the added benefit of being able to create shapes that are impossible to form using traditional subtractive methods.

“Clients typically come to us to try and push the boundaries of what’s possible with the technology available,” said Shay Moradi, Vital’s VP of innovation and experiential technology, in a video describing the company’s operations. “They don’t have time for experimentation themselves, but they can rely on us to bring about all the different elements that go into creating the exact tool that they require to do the job.”

Because it sounds like it comes from the realm of science fiction and the replicators of Star Trek lore, 3D printing is what we might expect that an outfit like Vital would prefer for its modern creations. In fact, the company says that it has found both 3D printing and the subtractive technique to be technologies that are complementary, not competitive, so it uses them both to create concept cars.

“A lot of people think additive manufacturing is here to replace subtractive manufacturing,” observed Vital design engineer Anthony Barnicott in the same video. “We don’t think that. We use the two together to support each other. We have many parts where we would use subtractive manufacturing and then have additive manufacturing produce all of the finer details. This allows us to have a more cost-effective way of producing our concept models.”

Vital got its start with a project to build the EP9 concept car for Chinese electric car maker NIO in 2015, and that low-slung supercar remains the company’s signature creation. The company employs an array of 3D printers, including 14 large-format FDM printers, three Formlabs 3L large-format stereolithography (SLA) printers, and five Formlabs Fuse 1 selective laser sintering (SLS) printers.

Each of these devices provides a unique capability as complements to subtractive manufacturing techniques. This has let Vital work more quickly while evaluating more alternatives than would otherwise be possible.

“Formlabs materials give us a nice, smooth finish for our painters to work with, we can use these parts straight out the printer, straight onto a vehicle,” said Barnicott.

“What interests me most about the Form 3L machines is their versatility, the ability to do a material change in less than five minutes and the variability of those materials going from a soft, flexible material to a hard and rigid material for us is priceless,” he added.

While highly visible parts like door handles and brake calipers might seem like the glamor components on projects like these, it is the new ability to 3D-print soft rubber door seals rather than having to tool up the extrusion process to make those parts, that the company points to as a highlight.

These tools have also had an impact on the process of creating concept cars because the shorter timeline for making parts permits rapid iteration of changes. “Typically when we would CNC machine parts, we would have to wait two, three, four days to get the parts in our hands,” recalled Barnicott. “The Fuse 1 has allowed us to have hands-on parts, in most instances, less than 24 hours.”

A typical show car—which generally will provide the appearance of the eventual product, but probably won’t include a drivetrain—can go through many design iterations, so speed is essential. “Sometimes we will have one or two iterations, sometimes we will have ten or twelve iterations,” he said. “Within those iterations can be further iterations of smaller components.”

With computer images of designs, we might wonder why these iterations are all done virtually. But that just isn’t a good enough representation of the parts, according to Moradi.

“I think there’s always going to be a place for physical manufactured objects as well,” he said. “There’s nothing that beats the sensation and feeling of holding an object in your hands with the correct weight, with the correct proportions, and the dynamics of how the physical environment changes your perception of that physical object.”

“There are certain things that you can’t qualify as emerging technology anymore,” Moradi noted. “3D printing is one of those things. 3D printing has gone from being a novelty to being an absolutely inseparable part of what we do.”

Source Popular Science

Rolls-Royce all-electric aircraft breaks world records

Posted on January 26, 2022January 26, 2022 by dishanth

An all-electric aircraft built by Rolls-Royce has broken two world speed records.

In November 2021, The Spirit of Innovation hit an average of 555.9 km/h (345.4 mph) over 3 km, and 532.1km/h (330 mph) over 15 km.

Both attempts, which took place at an experimental testing site, have now been verified as records by the World Air Sports Federation.

Rolls-Royce described it as a “fantastic achievement”.

The team is awaiting confirmation of a third record, for rate of climb

In runs at the UK Ministry of Defence’s Boscombe Down testing site in Wiltshire, the aircraft’s average speed over 3 km broke the existing record by 213.04 km/h (132 mph).

The 15 kilometres speed was 292.8 km/h (182 mph) faster than the previous record.

A third record attempt, for the fastest climb to 3,000m, reached in 202 seconds, is still going through the verification process. If approved, it will break the current record by 60 seconds.

A maximum speed reached, that of 387.4 mph (623 km/h) – which would make it the fastest electric vehicle ever – was not part of the official record submission.

The project is part of the UK Government-backed ACCEL or “Accelerating the Electrification of Flight” project.

Spirit of Innovation uses a 400kW electric powertrain

The aircraft uses a 400kW electric powertrain – the equivalent of a 535 BHP supercar.

Rolls-Royce, whose aerospace headquarters are based in Derby, said the propulsion battery pack was the most power-dense ever assembled for a plane – enough to charge 7,500 phones.

Warren East, CEO, Rolls-Royce, said: “Achieving the all-electric world-speed record is a fantastic achievement for the ACCEL team and Rolls-Royce.

“The advanced battery and propulsion technology developed for this programme has exciting applications for the Advanced Air Mobility market.

“This is another milestone that will help make ‘jet zero’ a reality and supports our ambitions to deliver the technology breakthroughs society needs to decarbonise transport across air, land and sea.”

Source BBC

Rolls-Royce launches pathway to power net zero economy

Posted on June 17, 2021 by dishanth

Focused on producing the technology breakthroughs society needs to decarbonise three critical areas of the global economy and capture the economic opportunity of the transition to net zero
New products compatible with net zero by 2030, whole business compatible by 2050
By 2023, all in-production civil aero engines to be proven compatible with 100% sustainable aviation fuels, contributing to UN Race to Zero breakthrough goal for sustainable aviation
Science-based target to reduce lifetime emissions of new sold products from Power Systems by 35% by 2030; new generation Series 2000, 4000 engines to be certified for sustainable fuel by 2023
Increasing proportion of gross R&D spent on lower carbon and net zero technologies to 75% by 2025 to decarbonise transport, energy and the built environment

Accelerating the race to a zero carbon economy

We are today setting out our near-term actions to achieve net zero by 2050 at the latest. Our pathway shows how we will focus our technological capabilities to play a leading role in enabling significant elements of the global economy to get to net zero carbon by 2050, including aviation, shipping, and power generation. This includes the development of new technologies, enabling an accelerated take-up of sustainable fuels and driving step-change improvements in efficiency. One year on from joining the UN Race to Zero campaign, we are announcing plans to make all our new products compatible with net zero by 2030, and all our products in operation compatible by 2050.

These products power some of the most carbon intensive parts of the economy. We are also introducing short-term targets – linked to executive remuneration – to accelerate the take-up of sustainable fuels, which have a key role to play in the decarbonisation of some of our markets, especially long-haul aviation. We are already well advanced with net zero and zero carbon technologies across our Power Systems portfolio and as a result have sufficiently reliable data to be able to define a science-based interim target to reduce by 35% the lifetime emissions of new products sold by the business by 2030.

Driving system change to meet Paris Agreement climate goals

There is no single solution to net zero and so we are innovating across multiple areas simultaneously. However, the pace and prioritisation of technological solutions, as well as global consistency and collaboration in policy, will also be key to success. Consequently, we are expanding our collaboration with partners, industry leaders and governments across the three critical systems in which we operate – transport, energy and the built environment – to accelerate progress. These hard to abate sectors are all identified by the UN Race to Zero as requiring technological breakthroughs in order to meet the Paris Agreement climate goals and limit the global temperature rise to 1.5°C.

Warren East, CEO, Rolls-Royce, said: “At Rolls-Royce, we believe in the positive, transforming potential of technology. We pioneer power that is central to the successful functioning of the modern world. To combat the climate crisis, that power must be made compatible with net zero carbon emissions. This is a societal imperative as well as one of the greatest commercial and technological opportunities of our time. Our products and services are used in aviation, shipping and energy generation, where demand for power is increasing as the world’s population grows, becomes increasingly urbanised, more affluent and requires more electricity. These sectors are also among those where achieving net zero carbon is hardest. As a result, our innovative technology has a fundamental role to play in enabling and even accelerating, the overall global transition to a net zero carbon future. We believe that as the world emerges from the COVID-19 pandemic and looks to build back better, global economic growth can be compatible with a net zero carbon future and that Rolls-Royce can help make that happen.”

Nigel Topping, UN High Level Champion for COP26, added: “Winning the race to a zero emission economy by 2050 at the latest requires radical collaboration and technology breakthroughs across energy, transport and the built environment – critical parts of the economy that are also among the hardest to decarbonise. By organising its industrial technology capabilities to deliver the system change society needs, Rolls-Royce is putting itself at the forefront of the defining economic opportunity of our time; one that customers want to buy, investors want to back, and the brightest talent want to apply their skills to.”

Pioneering the innovations that can enable the transition

We have many years of experience in pioneering solutions to some of society’s toughest technological challenges and, increasingly, we have focused that effort on the creation of sustainable power. We already make the world’s most efficient large civil aero-engine in service today, the Trent XWB, and its successor, UltraFan®, will be 25% more efficient than first generation Trent engines, significantly improving the economics of sustainable aviation fuels (SAF). In addition, we have built a microgrid business and designed a small modular reactor (SMR) power plant with the potential to transform how we power cities or industrial processes. We are investing in battery storage technology, demonstrating fuel cells and building a leading position in all-electric and hybrid-electric flight. Next month our Spirit of Innovation all-electric plane will take to the sky as it prepares to break the world all-electric flight speed record. Collectively and individually, these technologies represent the extensive expertise Rolls-Royce has to enable a net zero world.

Pivoting our R&D investment to lower and net zero carbon solutions

In line with the commitments we have made under the UN Race to Zero campaign, we are aligning our business model to the Paris Climate Agreement goals and setting out the pathway that will take us to net zero. We are already boosting our research and development (R&D) expenditure to pivot towards lower and net zero carbon technologies, moving from approximately 50% of our gross R&D spend today to at least 75% by 2025.

Our decarbonisation strategy

Our strategy has three interconnected pillars:

1. Decarbonising our operations: We will eliminate emissions from our own operations (scope 1 & 2) by 2030^*. Some facilities will achieve this target sooner, such as our production site at Bristol, UK, which is set to be the first Rolls-Royce facility to achieve net zero carbon status, in 2022.

2. Decarbonising complex, critical systems by enabling our products to be used in a way that is compatible with net zero and pioneering new breakthrough technologies that can accelerate the global transition to net zero. A wholesale transformation of the systems that make up the backbone of our global economy is required to achieve net zero and we can help accelerate that transition firstly by further advancing the efficiency of our engine portfolio through next generation technologies, to improve the economics of sustainable fuels; and secondly by introducing new low or zero emission products, including fuel cells, microgrids, hybrid-electric and all-electric technologies. To help accelerate the take-up of SAFs, we will make all our civil aero-engines in production compatible with 100% SAF, through testing, by 2023. This means two thirds^** of our current fleet of Trent large jet engines and three fifths of our business jet engines will be SAF-ready within three years and aligns with the UN Race to Zero breakthrough goal of 10% of all the fuel used in aviation being SAF by 2030. The current generation of SAFs reduce lifecycle carbon emissions by up 70% but this is assumed to increase to 100% as production pathways for synthetically derived fuels mature. We will work with our customers in the armed forces to achieve the same goal for the Rolls-Royce engines they use and, as the use of SAFs increases, we will ensure that our future combat systems are compatible with net zero carbon. By 2023, we also intend to certify for use with sustainable fuels, the new generation of our mtu Series 2000 and Series 4000 engines. These represent the majority of the reciprocating engines we manufacture and are used across a range of applications from power generation to rail and shipping. Achieving all our 2023 targets now forms part of our executive remuneration policy.

3. Actively advocating for the necessary enabling environment and policy support to achieve this ambition.

Among our technological innovations:

In all-electric aviation, we are moving from demonstrators to commercial deals, such as with the UK’s Vertical Aerospace in the urban air mobility market, and with Italian airframer Tecnam and Norwegian airline Wideroe in the all-electric commuter aircraft. We are also currently testing the most powerful hybrid-electric propulsion system in aerospace and continuing to progress with our UltraFan aero engine, which will be 25% more efficient than the first generation Trent engines and improve the economics of SAFs. We are already exploring the use of SAFs in defence applications, including as part of our involvement in the Tempest programme in the UK.
We are advancing and selling microgrids, complete with our own battery storage solutions, to help expand the use of renewable energy across remote communities and our energy-intensive digital economy. We are also exploring additional functionality through the introduction of fuel cells to provide clean power for industrial vehicles and processes.
We are testing hydrogen fuel cell modules at our Power Systems facility in Germany and plan to have integrated 2MW of hydrogen fuel cells into operational microgrid demonstrators by 2023.
Our SMR consortium is set to make a significant contribution to net zero through its innovative approach to power generation, providing a generational change in the cost of nuclear energy. At 470MW, each SMR could help decarbonise a city of a million homes. With UK Government assistance and third party investment, the programme is now entering a new phase leading to design approval and power on the grid at the end of the decade.

Pioneering sustainable, net zero power sits at the heart of our strategy, future innovation and growth agenda. Our decarbonisation strategy will ensure that Rolls-Royce is not only compatible with, but actively enabling, a net zero future.

For an executive summary of our net zero report visit https://www.rolls-royce.com/~/media/Files/R/Rolls-Royce/documents/others/rr-net-zero-exec-summary.pdf, and for the full pathway including the steps we are taking to lead the transition to net zero carbon visit https://www.rolls-royce.com/~/media/Files/R/Rolls-Royce/documents/others/rr-net-zero-full-report.pdf. We are committed to playing our part in the global journey to net zero. Undoubtedly, the very nature of this transition will mean that there may be general and sector specific circumstances which will influence the output from our roadmap. These are set out on page 32 of the full report. We also recognise that we must be prepared and able to adjust our decarbonisation ambitions in the context of the changing landscape.

^*Our current scope 1 & 2 target excludes product testing and development. Currently, only a 50% blend with traditional fuels is approved for use in commercial aviation. We are playing an active role in advocating for this to rise to 100%. As an interim measure we are committing to 10% of the fuel we use in testing and development activities being SAF by 2023.

^**Based on in-service fleet as of end December 2019; Based on the in-service fleet as of end December 2020, over 80% of our Trent engine fleet would be SAF-ready by 2023, but usage in 2020 was obviously impacted by the pandemic.

https://www.rolls-royce.com/innovation/net-zero.aspx

Source Rolls Royce

Rolls Royce plans 16 mini-nuclear plants for UK

Posted on November 11, 2020 by dishanth

A consortium led by Rolls Royce has announced plans to build up to 16 mini-nuclear plants in the UK.

It says the project will create 6,000 new jobs in the Midlands and the North of England over the next five years.

The Prime Minister is understood to be poised to announce at least £200m for the project as part of a long-delayed green plan for economic recovery.

Rolls argues that as well as producing low-carbon electricity, the concept could become a new export industry.

The company’s UK “small modular reactor” (SMR) group includes the National Nuclear Laboratory and the building company Laing O’Rourke.

Last year, it received £18m to begin the design effort for the SMR concept.

The government says new nuclear is essential if the UK is to meet its target of reaching net zero emissions by 2050 – where any carbon released is balanced out by an equivalent amount absorbed from the atmosphere.

But there is a nuclear-sized hole opening up in the energy network.

Six of the UK’s seven nuclear reactor sites are due to go offline by 2030 and the remaining one, Sizewell B, is due to be decommissioned in 2035.

Together they account for around 20% of the country’s electricity.

What is a modular nuclear plant?

Rolls Royce and its partners argue that instead of building huge nuclear mega-projects in muddy fields we should construct a series of smaller nuclear plants from “modules” made in factories.

The aim is to re-engineer nuclear power as a very high-tech Lego set.

The components would be broken down into a series of hundreds of these modules which would be made in a central factory and shipped by road to the site for assembly.

The objective is to tackle the biggest problem nuclear power faces: the exorbitant cost.

The reason it is so expensive is that the projects are huge and complex and have to meet very high safety standards.

And, because so few new nuclear power stations are built, there are very few opportunities to learn from mistakes.

EDF says Sizewell C will provide electricity for six million homes and create 25,000 jobs

So, Rolls Royce and its partners are saying let’s make them smaller and make lots of them so we get really good at it.

The concept would dramatically reduce the amount of construction that would be associated with a nuclear project, claims Tom Samson, the CEO of the UK Small Modular Reactor consortium (UK SMR).

“If we move all that activity into a controlled factory environment that drives down cost by simplification and standardisation,” he explains.

Each plant would produce 440 megawatts of electricity – roughly enough to power Sheffield – and the hope is that, once the first few have been made, they will cost around £2bn each.

The consortium says the first of these modular plants could be up and running in 10 years, after that it will be able to build and install two a year.

By comparison, the much larger nuclear plant being built at Hinkley Point in Somerset is expect to cost some £22bn but will produce more than 3 Gigawatts of electricity – over six times as much.

In addition to the six nuclear plants going offline by 2030, there’s another challenge. You have to factor in a massive increase in electricity demand over the coming decades.

That’s because if we’re going to reach our net zero target, we need to stop using fossil fuels for transport and home heating.

The government has said this could lead to a three-fold increase in electricity use.

The government says it remains committed to the construction of new nuclear power stations. GETTY IMAGES

The renewable challenge

UK SMR isn’t the only player which has spotted that there could be a gap in the market for smaller reactors. There are dozens of different companies around the world working on small reactor projects.

That has got the critics of nuclear power worried. Greenpeace and other environmental groups say small nuclear power stations pose similar risks of radioactive releases and weapons proliferation as big ones.

Greenpeace UK’s chief scientist, Doug Parr, says if the government wants to take a punt on some new technology to tackle climate change it would be better off investing in hydrogen or geothermal power.

And there are other reasons to question the SMR concept, says Professor MV Ramana of the University of British Columbia in Canada. He is a physicist and an expert on nuclear energy policy who has studied small modular reactors.

He says UK SMR’s 10-year time-scale for its first plant may prove optimistic. The one constant in the history of the nuclear industry to date is that big new concepts never come in on time and budget, he says.

He is sceptical that the factory concept can deliver significant cost savings given the complexity and scale of even a small nuclear plant. Smaller plants will have to meet the same rigorous safety standards as big ones, he points out.

He says where the concept has been tried elsewhere – in the US and China, for example – there have been long delays and costs have ended up being comparable to large nuclear power stations.

Finally, he questions whether there will be a market for these plants by the 2030s, when UK SMR says the first will be ready.

“Ten years from now, the competition will be renewables which are going to be far cheaper with much better storage technology than we have today,” says Prof Ramana.

Export opportunities

But Boris Johnson’s powerful adviser, Dominic Cummings, is known to be taken with the modular nuclear idea.

One of the reasons the government has been fighting so hard to free itself from the EU’s state aid rules is so it can get its shoulder behind technologies it thinks will give the UK economy and its workers a real boost.

Modular nuclear has the potential to do just that.

If Rolls Royce and its partners can show that the factory concept really does deliver high quality nuclear plants on time and on budget then there is potentially a huge world market for the technology.

The price per unit of electricity may be higher than with wind or solar, points out the clean energy consultant Michael Liebreich, but nuclear delivers power pretty much 24/7 and therefore can command a premium.

UK SMR is pitching the concept as a UK solution to the global challenge of tackling climate change and says there will be a vast export market as the world starts to switch to low carbon energy.

Boris Johnson is rumoured to be planning to take a big punt on nuclear power.

His government has always said new nuclear is going to be a key part of Britain’s future energy system.

As well as the potential investment in SMRs, the BBC has already reported that the government is expected to give the long-discussed new large nuclear plant at Sizewell in Suffolk the go-ahead.

Mr Johnson is expected to say these investments are essential if the UK is going to meet its promise to decarbonise the economy by 2050 as part of the worldwide effort to tackle climate change.

And, while there may be good reasons to question whether the SMR concept will deliver on its promise of low-cost nuclear power, there is no question it holds out exactly the kind of optimistic vision for the UK’s industrial future the government is desperate for.

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Source: BBC