Prime Minister Boris Johnson was on the campaign trail in Hartlepool yesterday, demonstrating how the town’s nuclear power station might be upgraded with new technology to reduce energy bills.
He sparked conversation when he reiterated the government’s objective of building one new nuclear power station every year.
The plant in Hartlepool he visited, which began producing power in 1983, is scheduled to shut down in 2024. Hartlepool, on the other hand, has been chosen as one of eight potential sites for future nuclear energy reactors by the government.
Speaking on Social Media, The Prime Minister tweeted: ‘Nuclear power stations like the one I visited in Hartlepool today are absolutely crucial to weaning us off fossil fuels, including Russian oil and gas.
‘Instead of a new one every decade, we’re going to build one every year, powering homes with clean, safe and reliable energy.’
While in Hartlepool he also said of the old plant: “We’re looking at 1960s technology – this stuff is as old as I am – but what we want to make sure we do is that we modernise and build a reactor a year, not a reactor a decade,”
“Look at Switzerland, look at France, where the inflationary pressures are lower because they have their own dependable sources of clean, low carbon energy.
How does this fit into the UK’s Energy Strategy?
Unveiled last month, The new strategy says the government wants to “lead the world once again” in nuclear power, reversing what it describes as “decades of underinvestment”.
The government announced the formation of a new entity named Great British Nuclear to boost the UK’s nuclear capability, with the goal of generating up to 24 GW of power from nuclear sources by 2050, accounting for 25% of predicted electricity consumption.
The emphasis on nuclear could result in the construction of up to eight additional reactors on existing locations.
Currently, the UK has 11 operational nuclear reactors at five locations, and we generate about 15% of our electricity from 7 GW of nuclear capacity.
Most existing capacity is to be retired by the end of the decade, as the first of a new generation of nuclear plants is under construction.
The ambitious Energy Security Strategy plans include a goal of generating 95% of Britain’s power from nuclear and renewable sources by 2030, up from 55% now.
How will this impact Bills?
It has already been announced that people living close to nuclear power stations and onshore wind farms could get lower energy bills.
Mr Johnson has been accused of exacerbating the situation for billpayers due to the high cost of energy from the plants compared to alternatives.
Nuclear power facilities provide significant volumes of low-carbon electricity, but they are presently more expensive than renewables, the cost of which has dropped dramatically.
According to EDF, the cost of funding the Sizewell C nuclear power station, the only one presently under construction, will add up to £12 per year to household energy costs at its peak.
According to opposition legislators, if the price of the proposals were spread between eight such identical projects, it would equate to an £84-a-year rise in bills, which is surprising to many.
How long will Bills rise for?
Looking at a report from Cornwall Insight, who provides energy market intelligence and analysis, they predicted that in the short term (over the next year) we will see another £600 increase in cap for Winter 2022, meaning that in the past year alone energy prices would’ve doubled, bringing the overall default tarrif price cap to over £2,500.
Looking further into the future, Cornwall insights have predicted Energy prices to remain ‘significantly above average’ up to 2030 even, citing potential delay in new nuclear power and closures of existing plants.
Are The North Sea Projects the answer to Slashing Energy Bills?
Kwasi Kwarteng, Secretary of State for Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy, revealed that another licensing round for North Sea projects will be launched later this year.
More oil and gas projects in the North Sea will be launched by the UK in an effort to reduce the country’s reliance on Russian fossil resources, and aim to keep Energy Bills more cost effective.
Yesterday, Mr Kwarteng announced: “As the Prime Minister and I set out in the Energy Security Strategy, domestic production is now more important than ever, recognizing that there will be an ongoing demand for oil and gas over the coming decades as we smooth the transition to cheap, clean, home-grown energy.
Mr. Kwarteng has written to and urged energy firms to develop a strategy for reinvesting earnings from new projects and doubling down on investments in the clean energy transition, as well as accelerating and maximising local oil and gas output.
He said: “In return for the UK Government‘s ongoing support for the sector, the Prime Minister, the Chancellor and I want to see a very clear plan from the oil and gas industry to reinvest profits in the North Sea and, importantly, in the clean energy technologies of the future.”
This comes as BP and Shell are set to post record profits next week as a result of sky-high energy prices, fueling new calls for a windfall tax to assist hard-pressed people coping with record heating and electricity costs.
In an interview with Mumsnet last week, Chancellor Rishi Sunak did not rule out the prospect of a windfall tax in the future.
When asked if he supported a windfall tax on oil and gas earnings, Business Secretary Greg Clark told the BBC: “I don’t know.”
This of course has not been received well by all, with Labour criticizing the move saying the letter that Mr Kwarteng wrote to Energy Firms was “not worth the paper it is written on” for the millions of people facing rising costs.
How would the North Sea projects impact Bills?
A spike in wholesale gas prices at the beginning of last winter led to the demise of 30 energy suppliers, impacting around 4.5 million consumers and caused bills to rocket, expecting to rise even more in the Autumn.
Despite the fact that the cost-of-living problem is still affecting Britons, the Government has not allocated any more funds to help families.
The Government has promoted the North Sea projects as a way to deliver cheaper energy bills to customer, however this has been disputed by many.
#StopCambo, a campaign made up of individuals, grassroots groups and organizations across Scotland have argued that the price of North Sea oil and gas is determined by variations in global gas demand and is unaffected by any comparably slight increase in output.
Even the Business Secretary has stated that “more UK output will have no substantial effect on the wholesale market price of gas,” which has quadrupled in recent months.
The campaign also argued that It takes on average 28 years to go from discovering a new field to extracting any oil or gas, according to official figures. If the government were to license a new gas field today, it would likely be 2050 before it produced anything we could use.
This would clearly not be beneficial for the near future with Britons facing mammoth Energy Bill rises, with a further rise expected in Autumn.
How long will Bills rise for?
Looking at a report from Cornwall Insight, who provides energy market intelligence and analysis, they predicted that in the short term (over the next year) we will see another £600 increase in cap for Winter 2022, meaning that in the past year alone energy prices would’ve doubled, bringing the overall default tarrif price cap to over £2,500.
Looking further into the future, Cornwall insights have predicted Energy prices to remain ‘significantly above average’ up to 2030 even, citing potential delay in new nuclear power and closures of existing plants.