Hopes and costs are high for UK's nuclear energy future
BRIDGWATER, England (AP) — Wedged between the southwestern town of Bridgwater and the Severn estuary is a 430-acre site where some of the U.K.'s future electricity hopes are pinned.
Now reaching over 100 feet (32 meters) high, construction on the first of two nuclear reactors at the Hinkley Point C generating station is well underway, after years of planning.
Hinkley Point C is set to be one of the the biggest power stations in Britain and will generate 7% of the country’s electricity. Around 8,000 workers, many of them currently living on-site, are shuttled between work and home at any hour of the day, seven days a week, on the site’s bustling bus network.
“Here at Hinkley, everything's on a grand scale,” said project delivery director Nigel Cann as he gestured toward the giant site. “We have the third biggest bus service in the world. We serve more eggs and sausages and bacon than anywhere else in the U.K., I imagine.”
Sites like Hinkley have become integral to the U.K. government’s “net zero” by 2050 strategy. Some experts say nuclear energy will be needed to help nations wean off fossil fuels, but there are concerns about the substantial cost and timescale of building large nuclear reactors as well as worries over safety and nuclear waste. Other clean energy, such as wind farms, can be built and come online much faster.
Whether Hinkley is a success, energy analysts say, could help determine whether more large nuclear reactors like it are built in Britain and other countries in future.
Nuclear power is generated through fission, the process of splitting uranium atoms. The energy released by fission turns water into steam to spin a turbine that generates electricity, a process which doesn’t emit planet-warming gases into the atmosphere. Scientists say that for the...