Green and clean renewable energy is the only way for the world's energy development. A few days ago, Tom Greatrex, chief executive of the British Nuclear Industry Association (NIA), said that to achieve the UK's carbon emission reduction goals, the UK needs 15 GWe of nuclear power installed capacity by 2035, and this value needs to reach 30 GWe by 2050. Currently, the UK aims to be carbon neutral by 2050 and has 24 GWe of installed nuclear power capacity.

Nuclear power's share of the UK's electricity mix has long remained around 20%, Greatrex said, but has now fallen to around 13-14%. After the installed capacity of nuclear power increases to 25~30 GWe, this proportion will reach about 25%.

Greatrex said that recently, the four AGR units of Hartlepool Nuclear Power Plant (1300 MWe) and Heysham A Nuclear Power Plant (1340 MWe) have received short-term life extensions of about two years. In addition, the Sizewell B nuclear power plant (1250 MWe) is likely to be extended into the 2050s. However, almost all other operating nuclear power plants in the UK will be out of service within five years.

Greatrex emphasized that no matter how to reduce nuclear power, the UK needs more installed power generation capacity, and both large and small reactors need to be deployed. In addition, he said the nuclear industry needed government support to fund the proposed Sizewell C nuclear power plant.

The British government has been pushing ahead with its nuclear power program for years, and has stepped up the pace of building new nuclear power plants to help alleviate the country's growing energy problems after the conflict between Russia and Ukraine broke out. Britain's future will have "cheap, clean, reliable and plentiful" energy when the Prime Minister signed off on a new nuclear power plant in Suffolk. Johnson spelled out the government's ambitions: to approve one nuclear power plant a year by 2030, for a total of eight. The Sizewell C project will seek private funding and is expected to cost between £20bn and £30bn, with the government investing £6bn for a 20% stake. Editor/Xu Shengpeng