There is going to be no new golden nuclear age anytime soon in the UK. All but one of our present nuclear power stations close this decade as we impatiently await Hinckley C coming on stream to replace one third of the lost capacity 2020-30.
The last government proposed building a second large station in Suffolk at Sizewell, and announced a competition to choose a builder for a series of smaller reactors. Yesterday this government announced Rolls Royce will be the team leader and designer building these reactors. It was not a firm contract. There is no chosen location for the first one. There is £2.5 bn of public money over five years with no specified outputs listed in the announcements.
The Rolls Royce website says they want to gain safety and design approval for a 470 MW plant occupying a 5 acre site using pressure water technology. It will take an estimated 4 years from starting site work to the reactor generating power. Allowing further long periods to negotiate terms, get approvals and set up fabrication it may be ten years before the first is running.
The government also announced £14.2 bn public spend on going ahead with Sizewell C. Again there is no contract, as they have not negotiated the private capital with co investors. They will not put a price on it, but others say £40 bn. As the most recent guess for an SMR is £3 bn, Sizewell is 13 times the price for under seven times the power. It does not look like great value. Past attempts to build one of these in France and the UK have gone way over budget and been much delayed. They say they now know how to build them and will just copy one that is almost built. Sizewell will not be up and running before 2035.
The government tells us lots of new nuclear, more than we had before the closures, is essential. So how do we manage for the next ten years when nuclear almost disappears? We will need plenty of transitional gas stations for when the wind and the sun let us down.
June 11, 2025
Hinckley C is vastly over budget.
HS2 is vastly over budget.
The Channel Tunnel was vastly over budget.
Even the budget is vastly over budget.
What makes us now think that projects such as Sizewll C are going to be built within budget just because we apparently, and suddenly, seem to know how to build these types of projects when none of them have yet been completed in the UK.
June 11, 2025
We are in for a very lean time regarding electricity supply over the next 10 years, even longer
Not only are the nuclear plants due for retirement so are many CCGT plants
The sheer stupidity of the uniparty policies will be laid bare one cold, overcast and windless days when the whole house of cards comes crashing down as in Spain.
We are long overdue a correction in Westminster because we have been systematically lied to by the eco loons infesting government.
Milibrains Damascene conversion is 10 years too late and minuscule in scope.
June 11, 2025
I fully agree. Perhaps the discomfort of blackouts will bring some of the public to their senses too, as so many believe we are in a climate emergency, and refuse to listen to any other point of view.
Many believe we will soon have an abundance of cheap green energy, and the green energy companies will not be looking for profits, oh no not at all their ‘values’ give them a softer, kinder business model.
It’s not just the politicians that have been living in fairy tale land.
June 11, 2025
The big problem for the CCGT fleet is that they are being told that a) they will be barely needed, just 5% of the time because renewables will handle the rest (estimates I have made suggest that even with massive renewables buildout the real answer is probably more like 10-15%), and b) they will be required to install carbon capture or work on horrendously costly hydrogen in no more than a decade. That pushes the economics strongly towards inefficient OCGT because it is hard to justify the extra capital to build efficient CCGT, but even so the uncertain plant life because of future regulation makes no-one prepared to invest in new capacity, although capacity market payments would be sufficient to fund new CCGT if they were guaranteed for a normal plant operating life.
The delay in replacing capacity that this confusion has caused creates a further problem: order books are already stretching out several years ahead in the countries where these things are still made, so even a switch to more sensible policy will now struggle to acquire adequate capacity in time. The assumption that batteries are good enough because the market only gets really tight for peak demand hours will be exposed as the shortage if properly dispatchable capacity starts affecting more normal demand hours in periods of Dunkelflaute.
June 11, 2025
All government projects are hugely over budget and usually totally misdirected and often do net harm too. Net zero, the Covid Lockdowns and huge net harm Covid “vaccines”, road blocking, bus lanes… as good examples.
Nuclear is not very good and is very expensive at ramping up and down for wind backup too. Gas or Coal far better suited. As JR says we will need lots of Gas stations and lots of gas too. So get fracking now. Have the morons forced them to pour concrete down the fracking site in Preston Yet? Another act of mad vandalism!
June 11, 2025
When the government has forces us all onto heat pumps how will the grid and electricity supply cope with the huge extra demand they will then get in winter? Currently oil and gas does most of this heating? Do they plan vast over capacity of grid capacity and generating capacity all wasted for 90% of the year? Perhaps Miliband PPE, that Classics graduate at the CCC or Stark with his half law degree can explain? Might be 10 to 20 times current electrical demand on some cold days! So vast capital investment circa 90% wasted!
June 11, 2025
And gas storage.
It’s essential for helping to keep gas prices down – and more.
June 11, 2025
Agreed Paul, Government cannot manage large (any?) projects to time/cost/quality. At least the RR Small Modular Reactors are a smaller spend and have a better chance of effective delivery.
Some more benefits of SMRS:
1. Technology is well proven, having been used on subs and aircraft carried for decades
2. Creates jobs and builds expertise at a British company unlike Sizewell C (French built)
3. Reactors can be sited where electricity demand is high, reducing pressure on national grid
4. SMRs are better suited to flexible output allowing generation supply to move with demand
5. Will work 24/7 all year round, unlike renewables
June 11, 2025
The industry expert (forgotten his name) on GB News yesterday said it is now too late for nuclear – we’ve lost the tech know how and the ability to build ourselves (supply chains). He also stated that when they do eventually come on line, the cost Mw/Hr to the end user will be huge. There is very little to be cheerful about at the moment unfortunately.
June 11, 2025
We have an urgent need to rebuild it. The French went from a very limited research capacity to building and completing enough nuclear power to meet 70% of their overall demand in little more than 15 years. We may need to include some reverse technical know how imports to cover some lost skills in high quality steel manufacture and welding, etc. All the more reason to look at suppliers with current experience of building on time and on budget for designs that are proven, like the Koreans.
June 11, 2025
PW : “Hinckley C is vastly over budget.”
It is wrong to base the costs of large nuclear on the building of the EDF EPR Hinkley Point C (HPC) as this project was deliberately made to be expensive in order to promote renewables. Firstly with OTT regulations and then selecting Chinese funding. Professor Dieter Helm of Oxford University told the BBC in 2018 that the cost of HPC would have been halved if the Government (Cameron, Osborne & Davey) had borrowed the money itself instead of using Chinese capital at 9%. Exactly the same EDF EPR technology was used to build the plant at Olkiluoto, Finland, which although was also very, very late is now supplying electricity at £53/MWhr. The Koreans can build at less than half the cost. BTW, even at HPC costs the cost of energy from nuclear is less than that of renewables when taking into account capacity factors and length of service and without even including renewables intermittency and transmission costs.
June 11, 2025
Good morning.
You could always go for coal and gas? There is plenty there right under our feet. Building those would be quicker and cheaper giving us the energy we need, all the while we build nuclear as a long term replacement.
It is what is called, planning.
June 11, 2025
Gas better for efficiency in electricity generation. Burn the coal in living room stoves where efficiency is irrelevant.
June 11, 2025
A modern HELE coal plant can achieve efficiency of 50-55% which is not far short of CCGT, and a huge improvement over the 33% typical of old designs. The fuel is usually much cheaper than gas, but the plant cost is higher. It can compete for baseload if not drowned in carbon taxes. In fact in its last year, despite being ancient and subject to carbon taxes, RATS spent a lot of time operating as baseload without additional subsidy for doing so.
June 11, 2025
The thing about CO2 Dave, is that I walk around in it and not cough. As a lad I remember ‘Pea-Soupers’ where you not only coughed a lot but also couldn’t see your hand when held at arms length. Everything got coated in soot as well. I really don’t want to return to burning coal in the fireplace (for my heating) but these people seem determined to take us back there (and I have several bags of ‘smokeless’ in the shed – just in case…)
June 11, 2025
This but the latest example of a UK government living in cloud cuckoo land. There has been at least thirty years of failure to devise a coherent energy policy. This latest example is no different. It is just words. The UK is sitting on sources of energy. But government after government has the deluded view that it is best left there, underground and unused when it should be released to feed UK industrial activity.
It means the deindustrialization of the UK continues apace because without access to low cost energy that is what will happen. Other sectors of the economy are hammered by the jobs tax. Businesses still able to generate profits are hammered by the increase in corporation tax to 25%. Inflation hammers returns on investment. Capital needed to finance growth is taking flight to friendlier shores. Yet Reeves claims to have “stabilised the economy”! She and her ministerial colleagues are clueless in cloud cuckoo land.
June 11, 2025
Reading this I understand now why it was that while the stock market initially pushed up Rolls Royce shares by 8% in response to the announcement that their SMR had been selected the shares fell again when it was realised nothing would happen for 5 years.
June 11, 2025
Meanwhile, the Chinese have built their first Small Modular Reactor and are about to roll them out in China and export them.
The Korean big nuke is less complicated and approved for use in other countries, takes 7 years to build and cost half as much as the European Pressurised Reactors type steadfastly chosen by our European headed government. It has been favoured by other European countries.
Uk gas stations mainly built inthe early 90s are likely to close way before and nuclear baseload is available. We’re Starmered.
June 11, 2025
It is disgraceful to have taken 15 years for group think politicians to realise the vital importance of nuclear given the blatantly obvious design inefficiency and intermittency of wind and solar. It is equally obvious that no new wind and solar installations should be built and strenuous efforts made to withdraw costly subsidies. Yes we will need new Combined Cycle Gas Turbine plants to ensure our grid remains secure and operationally viable. Just how much public money has been wasted on renewables? There should be a public enquiry.
June 11, 2025
MS : “Just how much public money has been wasted on renewables? There should be a public enquiry.”
According to the Renewable Energy Foundation net zeroing our electricity alone has cost us £220bn or £8000 per household since 2002 with 5 direct and 5 indirect subsidies for renewables. The annual subsidy now amounts to £25.8bn/year and comprises 40% of the cost of electricity. Not only do renewables get subsidised prices higher than the market prices they also get get grid priority and constraint payments when their energy is not needed. DESNZ’s Clean Power by 2030 plan has been costed by NESO at “over £40bn/year”.
June 11, 2025
Most of us in the engineering side of the world were telling government back in the 1980s we must build more nuclear. No one listened. We even made the case back in the 1990 that if CO2 emitted by fossil fuel power stations was a problem, then nuclear was the clean available energy solution. No one listened.
We warned about the risk of lost spinning reserve making grid stability a problem, when dispatchable reliable weather independent coal fired power stations were being closed down and literally blown up. No one listened.
This latest announcement from government regarding putting some emphasis back into nuclear is forty years behind the time it should have been done. The nature of it is also as much smoke and mirror as it is hard policy. Not one milliwatt of new nuclear electricity will be generated during this government’s time in office which will probably be its last.
Not one nuclear milliwatt from Miliband should be carved into his head stone, it would be more than appropriate and we know he goes in for that sort of thing.
June 11, 2025
Maybe in the 1990s they were looking at the eye-watering costs of decommissioning old nuclear plants, and concluded more were a bad idea.
All my life nuclear has had a bad rap through high build costs, high decommissioning costs, ecological disaster when they go wrong and the problem of storing nuclear waste forever. Have these problems been solved whilst I wasn’t looking?
June 11, 2025
There is a geological repository alongside the Olkiluoto power station in Finland that is an example of how to solve the problem for the small volumes of waste that need to be handled for the long term. Solutions to reduce the need further depend on pushing forward with designs that burn up nuclear waste, but these have not been regarded as a priority.
June 11, 2025
Sir John,
This may seem a daft question and may well show my ignorance but, would it be practical and affordable for a group of local authorities, to pool resources and purchase a SMR from Rolls Royce to provide power locally?
Would, for example, the RG3 group be able to pool resources and provide power for Wokingham, Bracknell and Reading at an affordable price?
Reply. No, there is a national grid and new nuclear power is expensive. Councils have a dreadful record with investments in things they dont understand
June 11, 2025
@Reply – yet in the US their tech companies manage to do that, buy tier own Nuclear facilities despite the US also have it own power grid
June 11, 2025
There is a community owned water powered generator in Reading, they had to get permission to connect to the grid from the local operator, just like anyone who wants to connect a solar roof or farm, though I don’t think they actually connected in the end.
So, probably practical but I agree with JR – never involve local councils or politicians as investors or principals.
The question is though, where will you park this thermo-nuclear generator?
June 11, 2025
To reply, nuclear is indeed expensive and even more expensive if, as with the push for heat pumps, you need far more in winter than in summer and you want to use it to back up unreliable wind for which it is unsuited. Vast grid capacity increases needed too also vastly expensive and not needed if we frack and stick to gas until we crack fusion.
June 11, 2025
Not one of these projects will be completed remotely on schedule or budget, and every single one will be opposed by NIMBY MPs of all political persuasions with the help of an army of activist lawyers and the planning approval process will be dragged through the courts for years or decades. I see the local MP is already opposing Sizewell C – she’s Labour but if she was Conservative she’d still be opposing it.
June 11, 2025
The Government seems to be operating on the basis that:
“An announcement a day
Will keep Farage at bay.”
They make announcement after announcement and within the space of a few hours it becomes obvious that it is all just hot air.
If they’re now intending to “go nuclear” there’s no point spending £billions building the occasionally fairly useful windmills Red Ed intends to plaster all over the north sea, or the even less frequently slightly useful solar farms all over prime agricultural land.
It is basic common sense that you don’t prioritise the provision of an intermittent, unreliable source of energy which requires a permanent back-up to be on standby, when you can go straight for the reliable regular sources.
It seems to me that this announcement was simply the first stage of the longer-term acknowledgement that the wheels are coming off the Net Zero Insanity.
June 11, 2025
+++ There seems to be a dearth of common sense, and very much a ‘nanny knows best’ attitude.
What the heck, it’s only money, just slap a bit more on our energy bills to pay for the dalliance and blame it on war/global warming/far right!!
June 11, 2025
@Donna +1
June 11, 2025
Meanwhile Mad Ed Milliband sits in a corner weeping. His Net Zero lunacy exposed. What tales will he tell to justify nuclear, when he constantly told us wind and solar were to be our saviours.
June 11, 2025
Why worry, just raise taxes, which seems to be the Governments answer to everything, until that is people decide enough is enough, and why should they bother to work to subsidise others who cannot be bothered.
All these taxes will eventually kill any form of real work ethic.
You can see the signs of it happening already.
June 11, 2025
Sir John: “So how do we manage for the next ten years when nuclear almost disappears?”
As the Chinese proverb has it, the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. In the present context, that step involves repealing Ed Miliband’s Climate Change Act. This would, of course, require a Commons majority for a party that has pledged to do so.
June 11, 2025
The UKs level of public and private sectors investment has been the worst in the G7 for 24 of the last 30 years. Vast cost overruns, probably some inevitable due to project complexity, (may) means other demands cannot be met albeit not acknowledged at a political level.
However the result is large amounts of money into the U.K. economy, employment, materials etc. OK forced on HMG but for all the naysayers, where would our investment levels be without it.
June 11, 2025
Reform, if they become the next government, will inherit this mess and risk getting most of the blame. They should start talking about building open cycle gas turbines (OCGT) fast to get the country (and the thick politicians) used to the idea. Just like the good old days! Conversion to CCGT later.
June 11, 2025
Another case of desperate sound-bite PR where the headline doesn’t match the reality.
Desperate people in desperation, worried more about their chances at the next election and not managing the economy. So any speech any photo opportunity however lame is the priority.
If they had knuckled down and done what we empowered and paid them to do – ‘manage’ the economy. All this song and dance wouldn’t be a thing.
June 11, 2025
I posted this yesterday, but worth repeating
Announced – 19 September 2024
The Czech Republic has become the first country to place an order for Rolls-Royce’s mini nuclear reactors, raising fears in Britain that skilled jobs and exports will disappear abroad.
The Czech companies thus have a unique opportunity to stand at its birth and participate to the maximum extent possible,
The Czech government has guaranteed a pipeline of initial work for Rolls by committing to at least three sites, with each expected to host multiple SMRs.
Th UK just one solitary RR SMR ‘maybe’ etc if a site is approved.
Behind the curve again with a government seeking political terrorism and ideology first, doing their job kicked into the long grass yet again…
June 11, 2025
Its not just a question of the history of major projects in this country its also the failure of politicians who do not have the brain power, experience and lack of accountability which leads to constant failure to perform – it also does not say much for the quality of our civil servants and the advice they provide. The aspect that is also overlooked is whether EDF are up to the job – do they have a working reactor outside of the UK? Their quality control is suspect they have been bailed out by the French government and its all these aspects that will feed through to a rip off pricing when power is eventually produced
June 11, 2025
This DESNZ announcement is simply hot air. There is no intention to develop and employ nuclear energy in the UK. The CCC and NESO plans are for just 6% nuclear by 2050. A reduction from the 26% in 1997. There is no more chance of this happening than when PM Johnson announced the DESNZ plan for 8 new nuclear reactors by 2050 at the rate of one per year back in May 2022. This announcement is just the MOD instructing a PM to make a promise to keep the plebs happy safe in the knowledege that it will never be implemented and will soon be forgotten. The plan is to make us dependent upon Chinese supplied expensive, intermittent and militarily insecure renewables with no plans for grid-scale backup other than interconnectors and rolling blackouts. For the country to have affordable, reliabale and abundant nuclear energy it will have to vote for it by voting the Uniparty out of office.
June 11, 2025
Here’s a question. Cards on the table. Will there be a working RR SMR in the uk in the next 10, even 15 years ? What are the chances.
June 11, 2025
M.A.N. :
RR say 4 years. But our Civil Service are determined to make it as long as they can hold out for before the rest of the world shows it provides the only low CO2 emitting energy which is abundant, affordable and reliable. Not that CO2 causes global warming.
June 11, 2025
No worries! The Government is increasing the number of inter connectors with mainland Europe. This means we shall continue sell our own electricity cheaply and buy more in at exorbitant prices. And of course, if we don’t obey EU diktats (in which we have no say) or the whims of individual countries, they will threaten us first and then cut the incoming supply!
June 11, 2025
With no reliable energy source for the next 10 years at least we really will be back in the dark ages.
So all of that industry supposed to be building our armed forces infrastructure will likely be given priority for energy, and we shouldn’t forget the other nightmare of AI that will see multiple datacentres soaking up power, while the rest of us suffer!
It’s easy to justify that statement when you look at the priorities of Starmer – he is determined to take on Russia to show what a great war leader he is.
This country is heading towards chaos and mayhem, and while depopulation is not currently active, the results of what is going on now will mean a lot more people will die than be born, and that doesn’t even take into account those being killed by the effects of our warmonger PM following his heart.
It should be clear that the direction we are being taken in is not going to make us great, or help our survival potential – far from it!
June 11, 2025
Cumulative lack of decision making and poor decision making epitomise our approach to energy security. Hardly surprising when low grade, technically inept politicians can only think as far as the next election.
Demand in the U.K. from peak to median is 50Gw to 30Gw. Assuming we have Hinckley C and Sizewell B within the next 10years, producing 4.3Gw, we still have a peak need of 45.7 Gw.
Short term ie. 10 to 15 years is the replacement of existing and creation of new gas fired power stations adjacent areas of need and using home produced gas of which we have an abundance. In parallel we need a go ahead for RR- SMRs so the first becomes active in 2029 and a series result to fill the requirement of 45.7 Gw left after Hc and Sb become active. What I suggest is a strategic necessity and obviates the need for massive grid requirements, because you build next to need.
Wind and solar, being intermittent, should be used for hydrogen production , to largely propel vehicles. This is the way Japan and Toyota in particular are thinking and are in fact doing. They of course plan long term.
The whole requirement in the UK needs to be subjected to critical path analysis to achieve a viable return to strategically necessary home grown power between now and 2050. You might then discover that the power we end up with is as green as it gets.
June 11, 2025
If the government continues as it has been doing the only nuclear we are likely to get soon will be from Russia. Lavrov has blamed the U.K. for the terrorist attacking in Russia and they have taken out an ex-Visa building being used by the British secret services.
We need to pull out of Ukraine!
June 11, 2025
It is a sad reflection on our governments over the last 30 years that we are in this position. It is equally unfortunate that they are trying to build two systems to provide electricity when Nuclear power could do it alone.
Also, gas or coal-fired plants could do it, but the nuts of the Net Zero religion won’t allow that!
Thank goodness they are talking to Rolls-Royce about SMRs, but it should have happened years ago.
Where there is no vision, the people perish, or to amend that, where there is no vision, the UK will suffer power cuts! Minds are like parachutes; they work best when they are open. Sadly, Ed Miliband, Keir Starmer, and the rest of the cabinet have closed minds when it comes to Net Zero!
June 11, 2025
Just a few days before these announcements the Czechs announced agreement with the Koreans for 2GW of nuclear for a turnkey price of €16bn. Perhaps not entirely coincidentally, that is just less than £14bn. That would, operated as baseload, produce power at a price that is fully competitive withh current baseload forward prices of £75/MWh. (Assumes a capital charge of 7% for a long lived assets and fuel and O&M costs of under £10/MWh).
The Koreans even offered a keener price for an order of 4GW+, but the Czechs who are only 11 million people decided to space out their purchases. Note that the price will include compliance with EU regulation, which accounts for some of the difference over the $25bn cost for 5.6GW at Barakah, UAE (also some inflation and cheap imported labour for some construction). Incidentally the French also bid for the contract but were uncompetitive and the courts threw out their attempts to prevent it going to the Koreans.
So why are we going to spend twice as much per GW at Sizewell C?
June 11, 2025
Just as an aside, nuclear doesn’t do much to help energy security, take a look at which countries are the big Uranium producers and check what happened to France’s supply from Niger.
June 11, 2025
Do you consider Canada and Australia as major risks? Kazakhstan has so far remained a reliable supplier. There is probably a need to enhance enrichment capacity particularly for spent fuel reprocessing which is somewhat concentrated in Russia.
June 11, 2025
Canada and Australia are not major risks but increasing use of nuclear power worldwide will increase demand and a supply reduction from one of the riskier countries, due to Russia-inspired interference in Kazakhstan for example, would be akin to the shock caused by the loss of Russian gas supplies.
June 11, 2025
Trawling through the RR SMR site I think we are once again being treated to the very flexible unit of energy called the Home. It is clear they expect 3 plants to be built, but they describe their 470MWe, 1358MWthermal design as supplying 1 million homes. At 100% that is 4.1TWh/a as electricity with an additional 7.8TWh/a as rejected heat, some of which might be used for CHP or process heat if we are innovative.
They note they have interest from the Czechs for up to 3GW. Perhaps they will get regulatory clearance there first. We should aim for regulatory competition, or at least parallel working to speed detailed approvals. Meanwhile it is clear that the Czechs are a lot further forward with their nuclear than we are. It already supplies 35% of their demand and they are planning a French style grid with a target of well over 50%. At the moment their main flexibility comes from coal and exports primarily to Austria and Germany who have eschewed nuclear.
June 11, 2025
Big cutback on asylum seekers(asylum from what?) announced today.
The 32,000 in hotel accommodations is costing the taxpayer £1.74 billion. Additional there are 66,000 living in rented accommodation – cost to the Taxpayer no one is saying.
Rachael Reeves in agreement with Yvette Cooper is to take from the taxpayer another £780million.
The Border Force that protects this Nation sent two boats today to France to help ease the passage of these, lets be honest ‘criminals’. The EU considers itself a ‘safe haven’ yet they are fleeing it.
June 11, 2025
I guess for Miliband Czechia is a faraway country with policies about which he knows nothing.
Korea too.
June 11, 2025
Those who protest about ICE vehicles, fossil fuel power generation and demand more sources of intermittent (such an important word) electricity go strangely quiet when it comes to the intended provision of many more data centres, each with a huge demand for base load (i.e. non-intermittent) energy. Could it be that it might impact their computer gaming activities, their access to tic-tok, and the “follow-the-crowd” communication that influences their mindset?
You do have a frequent contributor who believes all the NZ propaganda. Where is he now? Has he found out that the New Zealand government have ditched NZ? And surely the UK government will at some point do likewise.
June 12, 2025
The massive data centres will be needed for the Total Surveillance / Social Credit system they intend to implement.
Data centre sounds non-threatening until you start to think about the data they will be processing: what you watch; what you buy; where your money comes from; where you go; your communications …. and if you transgress ….. we have already seen an example of that in Canada during the Covid Tyranny when Trudeau’s Government froze the bank accounts of those who participated or even just contributed towards the HGV driver protests.
June 12, 2025
Why do RR picture their SMR stations as single reactors on green field sites ?
The cost of running a nuclear site does not scale linearly with the size of the reactor. Many of them are fixed costs which are the same almost irrespective of reactor size.
Surely the best places for SMRs are the existing nuclear sites which are already shut down or will be shut down shortly ?
Also, you would want several of these small reactors on each site for economies of scale.
June 12, 2025
Nuclear, with the “once through” option, is not a large energy resource.
Already, about 30% of the world’s uranium resource has been used up, in only a few decades of supplying a tiny percentage of global energy.
Nuclear is only a large energy resource (comparable if not exceeding the fossil fuel resource) with reprocessing and fast breeder reactors. Both of which we closed down.