LAST week, the Labour Government announced that Wylfa in Anglesey will be home to the UK’s first small modular reactors (SMRs).
This decision will deliver clean power for millions of homes, create thousands of jobs in the area and provide long-term energy security.
Like Torness, the Wylfa site in North Wales has a proud history of hosting nuclear power. Opened in 1971, it was one of the UK’s earliest nuclear plants and served as a foundation stone for the region’s industrial economy. Now Wylfa can look forward to a proud future in the industry too.
Clean, home-grown nuclear power can play a key role in helping secure our energy system and protect family finances by replacing our dependency on fossil fuel markets with homegrown power that we control.
New nuclear technologies like small modular reactors and advanced modular reactors are key to meeting soaring electricity demand, which is expected to double by 2050, with potential to decarbonise heavy industry or produce clean, homegrown hydrogen.
GB Energy Nuclear is progressing work on potential sites in Scotland, including Torness, so that our people, local economies and supply chains could benefit in the same way as those in North Wales and other parts of the UK.
But in Scotland, the SNP Government continues to be the block to communities here seizing the opportunities investment in new nuclear would bring.
I can see no sense in East Lothian missing out on significant new investment in the next generation of nuclear power facilities. If the planning block continues, we will lose the chance to create thousands of new jobs and apprenticeships, and opportunities for local businesses in the supply chain.
This is a critical time for civil nuclear power at Torness. Given their continued opposition, if the SNP Government is not removed next year, then it might be too late for Torness to have the future many of us want to see.
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