With almost £100 million in support for nuclear and clean hydrogen energy, the UK government has committed to the country’s continued production of clean energy.
In the UK, £75 million has been set aside to fund the development of upgraded nuclear reactors and next-generation nuclear fuel, and an additional £25 million will be used to develop novel new technologies that will produce clean hydrogen from biomass and waste.
With up to £60 million in financing, the funding will promote the creation of novel nuclear energy. Its goal is to launch the next stage of research into cutting-edge high temperature gas reactors (HTGR), a form of advanced modular reactor (AMR), which may be operational by the early 2030s. By the end of the decade, a demonstration project of the engineering design is intended to be operational thanks to financing from the Advanced Modular Reactor R&D program.
An additional £4M will be added to the funding for HTGR innovation to assist the AMR Knowledge Capture Project, which will enable knowledge sharing and capture to speed up program delivery and lower risk and expense.
Westinghouse in Preston, which manufactures nuclear fuel, will receive up to £13 million in the meantime. The money will help the business build the capacity to produce new fuel using both reprocessed and newly mined uranium.
Ministers anticipate that it would increase the UK’s energy security, open up new export markets for the industry, and establish the UK as a significant global provider of nuclear fuel and fuel cycle services.
The government has also set aside money to research the usage of hydrogen in the future. Accelerating the usage of hydrogen, which is destined to become a superfuel of the future, will be essential for the UK’s transition to cleaner energy.
A special “negative emission” technology called BECCS, which can permanently remove CO2 from the atmosphere, will help accelerate the deployment of hydrogen from bioenergy. During the process of producing hydrogen, biomass absorbs CO2 as it grows, which is subsequently trapped and permanently stored.
Hydrogen On the UK’s route to net zero emissions, BECCS technologies will be crucial because they will provide hydrogen as a clean fuel for hard-to-decarbonize industries like transportation and heavy industry.
