Just this week it was announced that Rolls Royce got the privately-funded backing it needed to further develop and build mini nuclear reactors, which it is hoped will reduce the UK’s dependence upon Chinese funding and technology.
The following links are from The Telegraph so some might not be able to read them in their entirety, but you’ll get the idea nonetheless:
Regarding the last Telegraph link, Rolls Royce also recently secured a £1billion contract to power the UK’s next generation of submarines.
This consolidates Rolls Royce’s position as a global leader in the technology and potentially the global leader in SMR (Small Modular Reactor) technology.
Although the last link (Industry Week) is well out of date now, I do agree with the other suggestions of a British company - RR - being given the chance to produce nuclear power sources not only for our nuclear submarines but also for smaller, more local, nuclear energy generation stations which could be built in a number of places around our country.
This would be far preferable to the Chinese and certainly the Frogs being given the contracts, especially as neither of those countries are our allies and therefore cannot be trusted. In fact, the nuclear power stations being built now could be used as an incentive for us to give in to the future demands of those two countries.
I believe it is high time now for us to begin making things for ourselves. That would be far safer and no doubt more economically advantageous for us.
The last link was really included to point out how Rolls Royce have been involved with nuclear power in recent years and thus been in a position to further develop the technology JBR, but fair enough.
As you very rightly say though, anything decreasing our reliance on others for nuclear capabilities is to our advantage.
These SMR’s will put us at the bleeding edge of such technology as well as increasing our independence in many ways including power generation.
