LONDON (Reuters) -Britain on Thursday named a site in North Wales for the location of its first small modular reactor (SMR) nuclear power station, as it pushes ahead with plans to expand the country’s nuclear energy infrastructure amid criticism from the United States.
The government said in June it would spend 2.5 billion pounds ($3.36 billion) on SMRs, which are cheaper and quicker to build than large-scale nuclear power plants, aiming to increase energy security and helping to meet climate targets.
Britain’s decision to choose Wylfa on Anglesey, an island in North Wales, as the location for the first SMR was criticised by the U.S. ambassador in an unusually strongly-worded statement on the eve of the announcement.
The United States had been pushing for a large-scale project in Wylfa, which is the site of an old nuclear power station that closed down in 2015.
The UK government said its nuclear expansion could also include building a new large-scale plant, adding that it had tasked state-owned GB Energy-Nuclear with finding a suitable large-scale site by autumn 2026.
The government selected a Rolls-Royce design for the SMRs in June.
The new mini-reactors there will deliver power for the equivalent of 3 million homes, and will support up to 3,000 jobs in the local community during construction, with a plan to connect them to the grid in the 2030s.
There are two large-scale nuclear power plants currently under construction in Britain, one at Hinkley Point C in western England, and one at Sizewell C in eastern England.
($1 = 0.7451 pound)
(Reporting by Sarah Young and Alistair Smout in LondonEditing by Peter Graff and Matthew Lewis)
