Sir Anthony Seldon is set to release his latest political biography, ‘Truss at 10: How Not to be a Prime Minister’ on 29th August, covering the turbulent 49 days that Truss was in the top seat.
The book is expected to contain some bombshell revelations about her time in charge, including insight into how she proposed to deal with the fallout from her disastrous mini-budget, which sent financial markets into a death spiral.
It also claims that Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg tried to persuade Truss to make him chancellor instead of Kwasi Kwarteng, and that he urged her to abolish inheritance tax, replace all tax rates with a 20p flat rate, and organise a stunt to promote nuclear power.
Seldon writes that the then cabinet minister told Truss: “We should get a nuclear submarine to dock at Liverpool and plug it into the grid. That would show it is safe.”
Sir Anthony says cabinet secretary Simon Case dismissed the idea as a “non-starter”, adding that “the subs are needed in operations”.
So from some googling it looks like the biggest nuclear subs top out at about 30MWe of output, which is roughly the same as EDFs West Benhar wind farm (https://www.edf-re.uk/what-we-do/onshore-wind/) which has 7 onshore wind turbines and can power about 18,000 homes.
Subs reactors will also be designed around the needs to power the sub with will presumably have much different load requirements to commercial nuclear power station.
I’m also willing to bet it isn’t exactly economically viable running it long term.
Slightly related but there was a time they used a engine as an emergency generator for a town https://youtu.be/FWYbD2ga8DM
Probably not set up for it, phased correctly, or economicly viable.
Saying that, as a stunt and promo it doesn’t need to be.
Nuclear subs probably aren’t set up to handle lightning hitting the grid, either.
My understanding is that subs use the nuclear plant to generate steam, which powers a steam turbine connected directly to the prop. They can’t generate that much electrical power.