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Commoditisation of civil nuclear power

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Logo for BBC Inside ScienceA colleague and I published a paper last month that we hope will bring about a paradigm shift in the nuclear power industry. I was interviewed on BBC Radio 4’s Inside Science on the day following its publication – its the first time one of my scientific papers has made that big a splash in the media!  You can listen to the programme on BBC Sounds at https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001zdwv.

In the paper we describe a blueprint for the factory-production of sealed micro-power units with a digitally-enabled, holistic assurance framework.  Currently, several designs of micro-reactors are progressing to the prototype stage with hazards contained on-site.  The integration of these approaches enables a transformation of the regulatory regime to type or series approval at the factory, similar to the aerospace industry, and supported by digital tools such as block chains to provide transparent quality assurance within the supply chain.  The transformation of the regulatory regime and the shift to ‘flow’ production in a factory would remove the financial risk from the power plant to the factory thereby enabling nuclear power to become a realistic competitor for intermittent green energy sources, such as wind and solar, both in terms of financial and ecological costs.  The output from three production lines could replace the current electricity generating capacity from fossil fuels in the UK over approximately 15 years thus making a significant contribution to achieving net zero greenhouse gas emissions.  We propose a design philosophy for the micro-power units that will allow them to go unnoticed in an urban environment or even become an iconic product that signals a community’s commitment to responsible stewardship of the Earth’s resources.  Our blueprint represents a revolutionary change for the nuclear power industry that would likely lead to the commoditisation of nuclear power whereas the status quo probably leads to extinction.

The paper is published with open access (its free) at Patterson EA & Taylor RJ, 2024, The commoditisation of civil nuclear power, Royal Society Open Science, 11:240021.

You’re all weird!

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bubbleRecently, I attended a talk given by the journalist, Richard Black to a group of scientists and engineers. He used a show of hands to establish that none us read the tabloid newspapers and told us we were all weird.  He went on to discuss how we live in bubble and rarely come into contact with people outside of it.  In media terms, I live in a bubble that can be defined by BBC Radio 4 in the UK or NPR in USA.  And, I was surprised how easy it was to substitute NPR for BBC Radio 4 when we moved to the USA, so the bubble extends across national boundaries.  But, nevertheless we live in a relatively small bubble because the tabloid papers are read by millions of people whereas the serious papers I prefer have only hundreds of thousands of readers. That’s why we are weird – we’re unusual.  It’s also why we are surprised when electorates make apparently irrational decisions.  However, they are only irrational to weird people who have access to the information and analysis available in our bubble.

We should not blame the media because most are simply businesses whose bottom line is profit, which means they have to be attractive to as many people as possible and there aren’t many people in our bubble, so most of the media doesn’t target us.   The same logic applies to politicians who want to be elected.

Interestingly, ‘weird’ is a late middle-English word, originally meaning ‘having the power to control destiny’.  So maybe being weird is a good thing?