The UK wants to be the first country in Western Europe to produce advanced hallyu fuel. The fuel, which consists of a form of enriched uranium, is needed to generate power in the latest generation of nuclear power plants.
“This will be crucial to energy security at home and abroad,” British Energy Minister Claire Coutinho said in a statement on Sunday. The British government has allocated 300 million pounds sterling for the necessary investments, equivalent to more than 348 million euros.
This measure is also aimed at becoming less dependent on Russia. This is the only country where HALEU is currently commercially available.
It is expected that it will not take until the 1930s before the first Hallyu factory in northwest England comes into operation. In the United States, Hallyu is currently produced at the Urenco uranium enrichment plant. But this does not happen there on a commercial scale.
The UK wants to get a quarter of its electricity needs from nuclear energy
The British government has previously set itself the goal of obtaining a quarter of its electricity production from nuclear energy by 2050. In this way, the country wants to become less dependent on gas and coal. This should also reduce harmful greenhouse gas emissions.
Last year, the government also announced new support for the development of smaller nuclear reactors. It will be much cheaper and also faster to build.
More countries have plans to increase their use of nuclear energy. Not only Britain, but also the United States, France, the Netherlands and the United Arab Emirates, for example, supported the call made at the recent climate summit in Dubai to triple the amount of nuclear energy in the world by 2050.
