Present day and soon to come

Present day and soon to come

Present Day 1. The UK Currently only one generation III nuclear reactor is under construction in the UK, at Hinkley Point C. Construction was started in December 2018 and EDF plan to start generating electricity from one of the 2 reactors (each of 1.6GW capacity) by...
Biomass

Biomass

Biomass is a big topic, with a little name. It means many different things to many different people. Consequently, there is a wide variation in how to measure it – which is why you will see shaded areas of variability on bar charts which include it. Therefore,...
A political history

A political history

Introduction The first nuclear power stations were developed in the 1950s. Since then, hundreds of nuclear power stations throughout the world have generated low carbon electricity, reliably, safely and with capacity factors (these are explained below) increasing from...
Why Nuclear Energy?

Why Nuclear Energy?

Nuclear power has an important role to play in helping the UK and world achieve net-zero CO2 emissions by 2050. All main political parties, including the Green Party of England and Wales, include some level of nuclear power when stating in their manifestos how they...
The Science

The Science

The science bit: An introduction to atomic structure and nuclear reactions The atom consists of a nucleus and electrons in orbits surrounding the nucleus. The tiny electrons are packets of energy with a negative charge whereas the nucleus consists of two particles...
Physical Footprint comparison

Physical Footprint comparison

Physical Footprint comparison: nuclear, solar & wind The power density for nuclear is about 1000W/m2 compared with 2-3 W/m2 for wind and 100 W/m2 for solar (data taken from here). If the differences in capacity factors are taken into account these values suggest...