Rishi Sunak is set to cut the UK’s ambitious 2050 nuclear target in the latest Net Zero climb down.
Under Boris Johnson, the Government pledged that by the middle of the century, the UK would have 24 gigawatts of capacity.
However uncertainty around the delivery time for Britain’s nuclear programme means the Government is set to promise just 16 gigawatts of capacity by the 2050 deadline.
The eight gigawatt difference is the equivalent of multiple nuclear reactors failing to come online, with Hinkley Point C expected to generate 3.2 gigawatts when operational in the 2030s.
While Mr Sunak and the Energy Secretary Claire Coutinho are understood to still be ambitious, the watering down of targets reflects continuing concerns around Britain’s ability to build major infrastructure in a timely fashion.
While the Conservatives have a positive record of nuclear power delivery, with Winston Churchill building the country’s first power station in 1953, the Tories have failed to complete any new station since 2010.
The last power station to come online was Sizewell B in 1995.
Sizewell C’s deadline has been pushed back by at least five years, having meant to begin generating power in 2025, and many argue is a prime example of Britain’s broken planning regulations.
The environmental impact assessment for Sizewell C alone came to 44,000 pages – over 30 times longer than Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace, and 17 times longer than the Bible.
Despite nuclear power being key to Britain’s hope of achieving Net Zero, the progress of nuclear power stations has constantly been hampered by environmental lobbyists.
The Sunday Telegraph also understands that the Government will drop its interim nuclear power target for 2035, despite it being a key recommendation in the official Net Zero review published in January.
Industry officials have warned Britain’s limited workforce and supply chains are not sufficient to hit the Government’s current target.
The latest watering down of the UK’s nuclear target follows Mr Sunak’s reversal of other key Net Zero targets in September.
Mr Sunak delayed a ban on new petrol and diesel cars by five years, from 2030 to 2035, and added nine years to the deadline for phasing out new gas boilers.
The Prime Minister argued the latest shake-up will save the average family up to £15,000, and aimed to make his approach to achieving Britain’s climate commitments a wedge issue between the Tories and Labour.
Mr Sunak pledged to be “honest” with the public about the financial cost of Net Zero, saying he would not impose “unacceptable costs” on families.
He warned that continuing down the path of Net Zero in a way that hurts wallets would “risk losing the consent of the British people”.
“The resulting backlash would not just be against specific policies but against the wider mission itself, meaning we might never achieve our goal. That’s why we have to do things differently.”
