Can smaller reactors make nuclear power economic?

BRITAIN IS keen on nuclear power—in theory, at least. In 2010 the government gave permission for eight new reactors to be built in England and Wales, as part of its efforts to decarbonise electricity generation. Things have proved harder in practice. A decade later only one—at Hinkley Point on the Somerset coast (pictured)—is being built. It is late and over budget. Construction only began at all because in 2013 ministers committed consumers to paying EDF, the French firm building the plant, a fixed price far above the going rate for its electricity for the first 35 years.

Rolls-Royce, a big engineering firm, thinks it can do better. On November 8th it said it had raised £195m ($263m) from private investors including Exelon Energy, an American firm, and BNF Resources UK, a company backed by the Perrodo family, a French oil dynasty. The money will be used to develop and design a new generation of up to 16 smaller nuclear reactors that Rolls-Royce says will be both cheaper and quicker to build than existing ones, and which it hopes may evolve into a new business line. That will be particularly welcome because its aerospace business suffered badly during the covid-19 pandemic, leading it to cut up to 9,000 jobs.