Think Scotland won’t get another nuclear power station? Think again – Dr Richard Dixon

However, things have changed since Labour First Minister Jack McConnell said his government would block new nuclear back in 2005. Since then, we have had SNP governments which, of course, have been firmly against any new nuclear station in Scotland, and currently, with the Green MSPs, there is a majority in the Scottish Parliament against any new reactors.

However, the Labour and Lib Dem parties have changed their positions. When Anas Sarwar became leader of Scottish Labour, he started to talk about a ‘diverse energy supply’ and the need for a role for nuclear – words straight from the nuclear enthusiasts in the unions. The Lib Dems were firmly against nuclear power until 2013 when Ed Davey persuaded the party’s UK conference in Glasgow that they must vote to become pro-nuclear and pro-fracking or he couldn’t do his job as a minister in the Tory-Lib Dem coalition government.

The Scottish Lib Dems have been rather quiet on nuclear, but the UK announcement prompted Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross MP Jamie Stone to immediately call for a new reactor at the Dounreay site in his constituency.

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Many immediately focused on the current operational or closed nuclear sites in Scotland as potential future locations of any new reactor, but Alister Jack was talking about the misleadingly named small modular reactors (SMRs), which are about the size of two football pitches. Ineos has already said that they might like to have one of these at Grangemouth. So the potential number of sites is much larger than just Dounreay, Hunterston and Torness.

Of course, there may never be SMRs. Many designs are competing for approval but they will be very expensive, create relatively more radioactive waste than a big reactor, and they won’t be built until the middle of next decade, if at all.

US company NuScale, the poster child for the SMR industry, cancelled its flagship deal to build six reactors last year amid rising costs. Meanwhile, the new reactors at Hinkley Point are now expected to start operating 12 years late at nearly double the original cost, and the UK Government is struggling to find investors willing to fund its only other large nuclear project at Sizewell.

Alister Jack’s announcement follows the remarkable admission from the UK Government, after decades of denying it, that the civil nuclear power programme is essential for nuclear weapons. Anti-nuclear groups, the Chernobyl disaster and changing politics in Scotland made sure the Torness reactors were the last built here.

For two decades, despite the industry’s continuing lobbying, new nuclear has been politically unthinkable in Scotland with the focus instead on cheaper and faster-to-deploy renewables. But Labour, Lib Dem and Tory votes could put new nuclear straight back on the agenda after the Scottish election if they are returned in sufficient numbers.

Dr Richard Dixon is an environmental campaigner and consultant