Military interests are pushing new nuclear power, and the UK government has finally admitted it

[DBoon]

https://phys.org/news/2024-01-military-nuclear-power-uk.html

The UK government has announced the "biggest expansion of the [nuclear] sector in 70 years." This follows years of extraordinarily expensive support.

Why is this? Official assessments acknowledge nuclear performs poorly compared to alternatives. With renewables and storage significantly cheaper, climate goals are achieved faster, more affordably and reliably by diverse other means. The only new power station under construction is still not finished, running ten years late and many times over budget.

So again: why does this ailing technology enjoy such intense and persistent generosity?
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Official UK energy policy documents fail substantively to justify nuclear power, but on the military side the picture is clear.

For instance, in 2006 then prime minister Tony Blair performed a U-turn to ignore his own white paper and pledge nuclear power would be "back with a vengeance." Widely criticized for resting on a "secret" process, this followed a major three volume study by the military-linked RAND Corporation for the Ministry of Defense (MoD) effectively warning that the UK "industrial base" for design, manufacture and maintenance of nuclear submarines would become unaffordable if the country phased out civil nuclear power.

A 2007 report by an executive from submarine-makers BAE Systems called for these military costs to be "masked" behind civil programs. A secret MoD report in 2014 (later released by freedom of information) showed starkly how declining nuclear power erodes military nuclear skills.