Interesting gamble the government is taking here. Unusually the environmentalists are right to be cautious, SMRs have been designed since the 90s and not a one of them has ever come to anything.
Also not completely sure why we’d need it. By the governments own plans we can expect our wind power to jump from 10gw to 50gw by 2035, which would mean being 100% renewable powered for months at a time.
Which will make it very very expensive, the research I’ve seen recently says nations that manage that transition can expect electric price falls of a quarter to a half, and that Hinckley plant is already going to be selling at over twice the unit price of any other source. I would expect SMR plans to collapse for that reason by itself.
It absolutely is. Nuclear waste is bad, but it’s not nearly as bad as millions of tonnes of carbon.
The main issues people have that I’ve seen are:
(And the ever present 3rd option: I don’t want it near my house, and I don’t want pylons on my land)
You recycle nuclear waste. The bits you cannot recycle are so small, you can keep it in an underground bunker.
Nuclear explosions only happen if you extremely mismanage a power plant.