The UK government’s Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) is seeking feedback from the nuclear industry and other stakeholders on its proposed timescale and structure for a High Temperature Gas Reactor (HTGR) demonstration programme. BEIS had announced in December that HTGRs would be the focus of the country’s Advanced Modular Reactor (AMR) programme.

“The aim of the programme is to demonstrate that HTGRs can produce high-temperature heat which could be used for low-carbon hydrogen production, process heat for industrial and domestic use and cost-competitive electricity generation, in time for any potential commercial AMRs to support Net Zero by 2050,” stated BEIS. (South Africa’s effectively abandoned Pebble Bed Modular Reactor was an HTGR.)

The UK sees HTGRs as especially suited to its situation and needs, as its civil nuclear energy sector is composed mainly of large-scale gas-cooled reactors. Two generations of these were designed and built in the UK. The first generation comprised 26 Magnox reactors, constructed in the 1960s and 1970s, while the second generation was composed of 14 Advanced Gas-cooled Reactors, built in the 1970s and 1980s.

“Certain HTGR designs have been demonstrated which highlight the early stages of technology feasibility,” noted the BEIS. “[We] would like the sector to demonstrate a HTGR, to be sited in the UK, which has innovation at the centre of its design, build and application – with the ambition for this to result in the most cost-effective solution shaped by end-user requirements and delivered by the early 2030s.”

BEIS intends to release a formal Invitation to Tender, for the first phase of the project, by June 30 this year. This HTGR programme is separate from, and in addition to, the small modular reactor programme being led by Rolls-Royce, which involves a small pressurised water reactor design and is also being supported by the British government; this should have a much shorter development and deployment time.