A community in Wales wants more nuclear reactors in their backyard. Why can’t they have them?
A deep-dive into Britain’s Great Bungled Nuclear
"We're now working on all this very, very fast. It's going to happen." - Former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, speaking about Wylfa in 2022
A new cross-party report by the Welsh Affairs Committee titled Nuclear Energy in Wales has called on the UK Government to take action on new nuclear energy in the country, particularly regarding Wylfa nuclear power station, stating that: “If the UK Government is serious about new nuclear energy it needs to pursue new gigawatt-scale reactors alongside SMRs.”
“The nuclear industry has made a major contribution to the economy of North Wales, and Wylfa Newydd would make a strong contribution in the future,” it continues. Meanwhile, progress in this area has been stagnant for over a decade.
Situated on the stunning island of Anglesey (Welsh name: Ynys Môn), off the north-western coast of Wales, Wylfa nuclear power station was built between 1963 and 1971. Wylfa was the second nuclear power station to be built in Wales after Trawsfynydd in Gwynedd in 1959. Following the closure of Trawsfynydd in 1991, Wylfa became Wales' only nuclear power station until it ceased operation in 2015. It is now being decommissioned due to reaching the end of its operating life.
In 2010, Wylfa Newydd (translation: New Wylfa), also known as Wylfa B, was a proposed new nuclear site adjacent to the old power plant. Horizon Nuclear Power was formed in 2009 to develop new nuclear power stations in the UK, including at Wylfa Newydd. The Japanese firm Hitachi purchased Horizon Nuclear Power and the land at Wylfa Newydd in 2012 with the aim of developing the site. But in January 2019, Hitachi announced that it was suspending the development of Wylfa Newydd after many years of trying and failing to reach a financial agreement with the UK Government. The company withdrew from the project in September 2020. Horizon Nuclear Power, through Hitachi, continues to manage the site.
Essentially, a lack of government commitment and investment led to Hitachi pulling out of the deal.
The impact this will have on the local community, which has thrived from decades of being so closely linked with the Wylfa nuclear power plant, is significant. Unions were hugely disappointed by the collapse of the Wylfa Newydd project, as it meant 300 job losses at the plant and 1,000 in the supply chain, plus the lost of around 10,000 additional jobs.
A fog of uncertainty
After some back and forth, the UK Government now speaks favourably about nuclear energy, and in 2022 it announced ‘Great British Nuclear’ for delivering new nuclear power plant projects across the UK. Despite the opposition also being in favour of nuclear energy, the government has failed to commit to new nuclear projects during its 13 years in power (and now blames previous governments for this, which does not correlate with the history). Currently, only two new reactors are under construction in Britain, at Hinkley Point C in Somerset.
The UK generates about 15% of its electricity from about 6.5 GW of nuclear capacity, and most of this existing capacity will be retired by the end of the decade. Although sites for new reactors have been identified across Britain, development has been neglected.
According to the Nuclear Industry Association (NIA), Wylfa is often referred to as one of the best sites in Europe for new nuclear generation. The £20 billion gigawatt-scale development on the Anglesey coastline is said by the Welsh Affairs Committee report to be vital to the Government realising its ambition for nuclear energy to meet up to a quarter of UK electricity demand by 2050. The Welsh paper makes powerful arguments for new nuclear power in Wales, including net zero goals, energy security, supporting the local economy, local jobs, and retaining a skilled workforce. It highlights a ‘fog of uncertainty’ around new nuclear power in Wales and concludes with 17 recommendations for the UK Government to take forward.
The collapse of Wylfa Newydd follows another failure: Japanese corporation Toshiba’s withdrawal from the proposed Moorside nuclear plant in Cumbria – again because the UK Government could not make the necessary financial guarantees needed to underpin the project.
The Welsh Government (Welsh: Llywodraeth Cymru) fully supports new nuclear power in Wales. With targets to be met in the UK, local government support in Wales, and international nuclear experts ready to be involved in the creation of new power plants, it is hard to understand why the funding for these projects has repeatedly failed to materialise. The more I looked into it, the more curious I became to find out what the local community feels about the situation, and what they hope and fear for the future of their towns.
A snapshot of life in Anglesey
Here’s a scenario: you finish secondary school and continue to study. You spend three years undertaking an undergraduate degree, then two more on a Master’s degree, and three more on a PhD. After eight years, you have the highest level of expertise in your field in the country, and you start looking for a job. There were meant to be opportunities for you in your hometown - you were told by the UK Government that there would be - and you chose your PhD topic on these supposed opportunities. But they fail to materialise, and instead, the local industry has completely shut down at home, so you have to move away from your community and family to find work elsewhere.
Another scenario: you come from a family of farmers and have been a farmer for most of your adult life. A new power plant has opened in your county, and they are recruiting. To your surprise, you pass the interview, are given a good wage, and receive training for further opportunities to progress at the power plant. You climb the ladder. You can put bread and butter on the table for your family for several decades. Your children plan to follow in your footsteps. But then, as the old power plant is shut down, and promised new opportunities don’t come forward, you, and several hundred people like you, worry about what your children will do for work.
These are real-life scenarios and they are playing out now in North Wales.
According to the NIA, nearly 60,000 people are employed in the civil nuclear sector. In Wales, job numbers have fallen drastically as roles get reduced at Wylfa and Trawsfynydd. Meanwhile, 46 per cent of the constituency’s population over the age of 16 is economically inactive.
Industry in general has suffered across Britain for myriad reasons, and one of the most significant is the lack of government investment. While other countries build new nuclear swiftly and efficiently, the UK lags behind.
The Island of Anglesey was also recently hit hard by the closure of the 2 Sisters chicken plant in March 2023, which meant the loss of over 700 jobs. With so many job losses across the industry in North Wales, a previous Welsh committee report from 2016 concluded that “without the nuclear power industry, there is little prospect of many high-quality, well-paid jobs in [North Wales], which will negatively impact the local economy.”
Getting to the heart of the matter: a journey to North Wales
My parents loved family holidays in North Wales. Every summer, come rain or shine, we would travel from Birmingham to Llandudno, Rhyl, or Colwyn Bay in my dad’s seven-seater, and just over two hours later we’d arrive at a caravan site or hotel on the Welsh coast.
For people who grew up at the foot of the Himalayas, who had migrated to work in factories in the inner-city in England, North Wales was a kind of paradise to my parents. They loved the beaches, the fresh air, and the Welsh terrain. Although we may look a little miserable in the remaining photographs due to incessant rain and wind on some summer holidays, I developed a love of hiking through these childhood treks up Welsh mountains.
Twenty years later, I decided to make the journey north again, but this time with a question on my mind instead of a holiday: What is happening in Wales without new nuclear energy?
If you read up on Wylfa nuclear power station now, you will find journalists rehashing the same quotes from a handful of anti-nuclear campaigners, as if that’s why the project for new reactors fell through. Certainly, anti-nuclear activists are given a lot of airtime by journalists, even when they don’t live in the area or are heavily-funded lobby groups like Greenpeace. But anti-nuclear sentiment was not my experience of visiting North Wales, and one side of the debate is not being heard enough. So I decided to give nuclear workers and local community members a voice by interviewing them for this article.
A local voice: Eric Wyn Jones
Eric Wyn Jones has an accent so thick that I have to take hand-written notes because I’m not sure I’ll be able to decipher the recording of our interview later. Jones talks fondly of his 37 years spent at Wylfa, where he initially worked as a ‘maintenance guy’ who later went into production. Recalling the opportunity for workplace mobility excites him. “Industry would encourage it,” he tells me. “It was up to you, but there was a path for you to progress if you wanted it. They put people through courses, sponsored me. I know it was a good wage, but it wasn’t just that. Younger people need stimulation, too. We got the opportunity for that.”
But the best thing about when they were building Wylfa on the island was, in Jones’s mind, the benefits to the community. “People made the place,” he tells me. Jones’s father was employed by Wylfa as well. “There was a big family environment on site.” The management also funded a social club where local people went to play sports and take part in friendly football matches, dances, and other social events, under what Jones fondly refers to as a ‘Wylfa brolly’.
Jones is disappointed that Wylfa won’t be getting new reactors. “I still hope for the likes of the young people that there will be a Wylfa B.” All three of Jones’s children undertook work experience at the Wylfa power plant, which he says gave them a “great start in life.”
I ask whether it was truly as wonderful as he recalls, or whether he’s looking back through rose-tinted glasses. “I wouldn’t have anything said against the place,” he grins. “What would be the state of North Wales if Wylfa hadn’t been built here?” Jones asks me. “We’ve been well looked after. We don’t really feel the pinch.” Referring to France building new reactors, Jones asks: “Why can’t we be doing the same?”
Jones’s message to the rest of the world? “Get over the scare factor. It needs to happen.”
A nuclear future: Professor Simon Middleburgh
Unlike the other people I spoke with, Professor Simon Middleburgh is not from around here. He grew up in Worcestershire, spent a few years working in Australia, then in Stockholm, and although he’s been in Wales for a while, he admits that he has found the language hard to learn.
Prof. Middleburgh works at the Nuclear Futures Institute where he is top of his game in a field that is vital to the well-being of the United Kingdom. He tells me that the research his team is undertaking at Bangor University is “two steps ahead of Wylfa and Newydd… We’ve got people with the skills. If you want an aerospace engineer, material scientist, or space scientist, you want a nuclear student.” Middleburgh proudly oversees 20 postdocs and students in this field. I ask why there is so much expertise concentrated in such a remote part of the country. The answer? Wylfa nuclear power station. “Without the nuclear sites in Wales, Bangor University wouldn’t have done nuclear.” Bangor University is “leading in Wales, and we’ve done it on a shoestring,” he emphasises – without test reactors, government support, or a national lab in fusion. His point is not that they’ve been left behind. His point is that they’ve excelled with few resources, and could achieve so much more with further investment in nuclear in the area.
One of the projects being undertaken at Bangor University is research into space fuel. Kernel fuels, which Middleburgh fondly refers to as ‘space balls’, are TRISO (TRi-structural ISOtropic particle fuel) particles, which are made up of a uranium, carbon, and oxygen fuel kernel. The kernel is encapsulated by three layers of carbon- and ceramic-based materials that prevent the release of radioactive fission products. The particles are incredibly small and very robust. Simply put, TRISO particles cannot melt in a reactor and can withstand extreme temperatures that are well beyond the threshold of current nuclear fuels. Prof. Middleburgh thinks that they could help to get us to Mars.
Middleburgh is confident that his students will go far: “Experts who build will be wanted around the world.” He points out that countries like Italy, with nuclear power plant shutdowns, have “haemorrhaged scientists to the rest of the world.”
Now that Wylfa is being decommissioned, with no future nuclear builds in sight, Middleburgh is concerned about what lies in Anglesey’s future. “Communities who have lost reactors are ready and trained. We’ll lose them. And North Wales could become very non-functional.” He worries that the local economy will stagnate, especially since the other main employers – the aluminium factory and chicken farm – have also already left the area. As well, the region could lose the social licence in favour of new nuclear, because people don’t want to be trained for jobs that don’t materialise. “They won’t want a repeat of that.”
This is a community that feels let down and ignored by the UK Government.
Middleburgh doesn’t mince his words. “We should be on a war footing with energy, net zero, and medicine,” he tells me. “Trawsfynydd would be the site for the first kind of that technology… It would put it on the map. Make a local dent. With new nuclear here, the UK could stretch its legs into the 21st century.”
I ask him whether he has experienced much anti-nuclear sentiment. “My nan called me ‘Dr Death’ for a while,” he laughs. “Mum marched at Aldermaston protests. But mum and dad came around.”
What does he think about the government’s ‘Great British Nuclear’ program? “More empty promises.” Middleburgh calls on the government to build a small modular reactor by 2027 to “show the population what nuclear can do… There’s so much space at Wylfa.” He lights up. “It could be the biggest nuclear site in Europe. In the world.”
Leaders of the future: Megan Wyn Owen, PhD
Megan Wyn Owen grew up in Anglesey, studied for an electrical engineering BSc, and is now in a postdoctoral position on nuclear fuel cladding at Imperial College London.
I asked Owen whether she always wanted to work in nuclear. She talks about climate change and net zero targets as incentives. “The minute I started it I loved it because I saw the impact my research could have. It’s a rewarding thing.”
Most of Owen’s family have worked on the Wylfa site - her sister, father, and cousins. She tells me that people in the community were not afraid of clean energy when they were growing up: “nuclear just wasn’t a big deal.”
Owen went to school near the Wylfa visitor centre, where her class was able to learn about different types of energy. She recalls vividly a demo on how to build a turbine, which made her want to learn more. “It was a big benefit to me,” she tells me.
Owen’s story is one of let-down, though she is optimistic about the future. She started her PhD when Wylfa Newydd was on the table, specifically choosing research in nuclear because she wanted to stay in Wales and thought that getting a job at home would be possible thanks to the proposed new reactors. “That was the dream,” she tells me. Owen is proud to be a “first-language Welsh speaker” who didn’t want to move away. “I’m very Welsh at heart.”
When the 2 Sisters factory on Anglesey recently closed down, Owen watched as many of her friends were laid off. “It was a really hard time. So sad.” She now describes the area as a ‘ghost town’. Owen’s expertise enabled her to escape this, with a good job that offers strong prospects anywhere in the world. But her heart is in Wales.
Having worked with Owen, Prof. Middleburgh sings her praises. “I would like to see people like Megan running the show… They are the leaders of the future.”
“I hope we get Wylfa Newydd or Trawsfynydd,” she tells me. “It will give something to the area again. It will keep the community together.”
From farm to plant: Cllr Gwilym O. Jones
Cllr Gwilym O. Jones has been an Independent County Councillor for Anglesey for 30 years. He tells me that when he lost his previous job, he was “taken in by Wylfa. We were very lucky.”
Cllr Jones says that the flexibility he was offered when working at Wylfa nuclear power plant, where he was allowed to work part-time hours which enabled him to do community work as well, meant that he could also later pursue a career as a Councillor.
Cllr Jones knows a lot about the history of Anglesey. He tells me that the work has been predominantly agriculture there and that many farm workers later became plant attendees. He recalls fondly the training centre program that was set up when Wylfa was being constructed; the buzz in the air and the feeling that things were finally moving forward. One of the programs was called Simnai Wn – translated: white chimney. Jones was also sent to other power stations to gain experience, including Trawsfynydd. He says that it wasn’t just people’s skills that were improved: “Wages went up, but there were road improvements before building Wylfa, and other needed changes.”
Now, he airs his disappointment that the UK Government didn’t come through and Wylfa isn’t getting new reactors. “All the work had been done,” he tells me. “It had the backing of local authority and local community – which is very, very important. Most of the elected members were in favour.” Cllr Jones himself undertook scrutiny work with Hitachi, as they went through the proposal together. “They had listened to us... They were training local indigenous young people. Training local people gave it a social licence.” Horizon had already taken on young people to be trained when the plug was pulled on Wylfa.
“I’m very concerned… Anglesey has lost a lot of industry and jobs,” Jones tells me. One 41-year-old who worked at Wylfa for 10 years and lost his job when decommissioning began turned to drug dealing to make ends meet. Cllr Jones fears that this is only the beginning of a downward slide.
I ask whether he has a message for the UK Government. He shrugs. “It was all ready to go ahead. We laid the groundwork. Where was the money at the time?”
John Idris Jones, former Engineering Manager at Wylfa, now Chair of Cwmni Egino
John Idris Jones is from Anglesey. He went to Swansea University but wanted a job at home, so he returned to North Wales. When Jones applied for a job at Wylfa, he initially thought “the pay is far too much, I won’t get that,” but he was offered the job, and then he was promoted, from a technical role to maintenance, to a manager. Jones worked at Wylfa between 1980 and 2016. “They were happy days,” he tells me.
Cwmni Egino is a development company owned by the Welsh Government that was set up to progress potential new projects and provide economic opportunities for Wales. For Jones, socio-economic development is an important factor. He tells me about the “importance of the power station to the local community,” and how the area has a high migration of young people, which needs to be addressed.
“I want to see new nuclear happen in the locality. Opportunities for young people.” He points out that 90 per cent of the staff at Trawsfynydd are Welsh-speaking. This is important for a community whose roots are enmeshed with their language. New reactors in North Wales, bringing jobs for local people, would help to “retain the flavour of Welshness,” Jones tells me.
Jones has been vocal about nuclear power for some time in the community, up against the media which has, as usual, given too much airtime to anti-nuclear activists (who incorrectly claim, when protesting Wylfa, that other industries manage their waste better than the nuclear sector; a statement that the journalist did not research or challenge when printing it).
But Jones doesn’t waver with his message: the UK Government is being far too slow about nuclear in Wales and they are losing manufacturing opportunities as we speak. “The only barrier is government will.”
Many voices, one theme
As I travelled across Wales speaking to people with different stories to tell, a common theme ran through it all: that the decision to abandon Wylfa was political. “There are people who don’t want Wales to look good,” I was told by more than one person. “The British government doesn’t want Wales to have this kind of power.” These claims may seem far-fetched, but it’s understandable when the case for building reactors in North Wales is so logical, but have repeatedly failed to materialise.
I spoke to many people on my trip to North Wales, including an anti-nuclear taxi driver whose biggest complaint against Wylfa nuclear power station was the fact that he has a disability with his hand which means that he wouldn’t be able to get a job there, therefore “there’s no benefit for me”. In the same sentence, he lamented the decrease in jobs in the area: “there’s nothing for young people here now, this place is going to suffer without the jobs. It’s all going to go downhill.”
Others spoke strongly in favour of new reactors. One resident told me that their primary concern is housing. “The influx of contractors resulted in a lot of dilapidated houses being brought to modern standards. During construction CEGB bought large plots of land, Cemaes and Moelfre, these were split into plots and sold to staff as self-build plots. I was offered one of the last ones – £2,000 seemed a ridiculously large sum of money! Hotels, B&Bs, etc – right up to the time it shut down.”
Others spoke of “opportunities to progress; guys taken on as apprentices ended up as managers. Equal opportunities for females, long before the rest of the world got on the bandwagon.”
Many expressed concern that their friends, neighbours and family members have had to relocate to Somerset to take their expertise to Hinkley Point C, some with their families, some without. “These are Welsh families. They want to stay together. They want to stay in Wales.”
Another former employee told me, “Wylfa has provided high quality, technical and professional, well-paid employment on Anglesey which would not have otherwise been possible. It has done so for over 50 years and is still doing it today. This time scale is significantly higher than any other technical industry employer on the Island, employing in the region of 600 personnel. The scope of different skills and job opportunities at Wylfa is vast: engineering, electrical, mechanical, electronic, computing control system, chemistry, physics, computer programming, accountants, training, presentational skills on related topics, administration, catering, and staff welfare. In fact, the list is endless which would not apply to many other companies on Anglesey or even North Wales. Wylfa has provided the opportunity for many local companies to start up and provide support to the Station. A good example is Anglesey Scaffolding. The salaries paid at Wylfa made a significant contribution to the health of the Anglesey economy.”
Scars on the community
Anti-nuclear protesters often make a noise about new nuclear power plants, but rarely are they members of the community. Research shows that people who live near nuclear power plants tend to be highly in favour of them: for example, according to research, 91 per cent of residents living near US nuclear power plants have a favourable impression of those plants. 88 per cent of those residents have positive opinions of nuclear energy in general, and 78 per cent would support the addition of a new reactor at their neighbouring plant.
To my knowledge, such research into public opinion has not been undertaken in North Wales, but Welsh politicians from all Parties have spoken in favour of new nuclear power, and my experience of the area is that people are friendly and keen to talk positively about the power plants there. As well, most Welsh people would like to see the Welsh Government make decisions about the future of nuclear energy in Wales. Retaining the language is important to them, as Cllr Jones pointed out to me during our interview.
The Welsh Government has been clear about its disappointment in the lack of UK Government follow-through for the nuclear sites in North Wales, stating that: “It is essential that the UK Government rebuilds trust around new nuclear at Wylfa… The UK Government needs to demonstrate a sustained commitment to investment”. The Isle of Anglesey County Council, meanwhile, has said that “communities in and around the island have been left uncertain by the outcome of the Wylfa Newydd experience.” According to the recent Welsh Committee report, the previous attempt to bring a new nuclear project to Wylfa by Hitachi has left ‘scars on the local community.’
A giant leap for Britain
There is much evidence for the potential socio-economic benefits of the construction of new nuclear reactors in North Wales. The Nuclear Futures Institute at Bangor University looked at the impact of Hinkley Point C and Sizewell C, which are comparable to potential plans for Wylfa, and found that the expected contribution to the regional economy is between £3.2 to £4 billion.
Looking at Electricity Maps data today, Britain’s carbon intensity for the last 24 hours was 221g, mostly due to our reliance on gas. Compare this with 36g carbon intensity for France, which is one of the lowest figures in the world. Britain also regularly imports electricity from France, where nuclear energy is the dominant form of energy generation. It will be impossible for the UK Government to reach its net zero target for 2050 without building substantial new nuclear power plants. As I have explained before, while we can build more wind and solar farms, we cannot increase how much wind and sunshine there is, as the cautionary tale of Germany’s energy policy demonstrates.
After much chasing and questioning, I managed to obtain a vague answer from a top government official, who wished to remain anonymous, regarding why the Wylfa deal fell through. “Blame the many years of protest,” they told me. “It’s impossible to underwrite £20 billion of taxpayer money for nuclear energy in this country.” I pressed them about the proposed Regulated Asset Base (RAB) funding model, which could help with getting new nuclear off the ground, and was told that it only exists as an idea at present. The RAB model is a potential method of funding future nuclear projects that was found in a government consultation in July 2019 to have a ‘credible basis for funding large scale nuclear projects,’ but it has not yet been used to secure new nuclear sites.
I asked my contact how billions of pounds have been signed off for defence (AUKUS) without major opposition. “That’s the irony, isn’t it,” they said. “The same opposition hasn’t stopped weapons. Only nuclear energy has been effectively targeted by protestors for a long time. That’s made over-regulating it easy and funding it impossible.” While it may be true that public opposition has been this effective in halting new nuclear development in the UK, Britons broadly support nuclear energy as well as defence, and it’s ultimately up to the government to represent people and protect their interests. Climate action, clean energy, and net zero goals are important issues for most Britons, as are cheap electricity bills. None of these can be achieved without nuclear energy.
It’s clear what needs to be done. The Welsh Committee report states: “We recommend that the UK Government collaborates with the sector and Welsh Government, in the production of a nuclear skills strategy to provide certainty to the sector on the skills required, when and where to allow providers to plan investment in training programmes in Wales.”
Reflections on a YIMBY discourse
As I watch the Welsh mountains pass by through the train window, I think about the many people I have spoken to on this trip, and consider that this is not a community that has given up hope. As I undertake the six-hour journey home from North Wales, a few pressing memories stay with me. These are not to do with arguments for job security, investment, net zero goals and meeting energy needs. They’re not even to do with the local economy. They are to do with what people have learned and gained from having nuclear in their backyard.
I recall Megan Wyn Owen telling me about her love for Wales and her hope that one day she can return to continue her career there. The difference she hopes her work will make to the future of nuclear and its impact on the world.
I think about Eric Wyn Jones with a twinkle in his eye remembering the culture of work around Wylfa, and the benefits it brought to the community and his family. The stimulating work. The sports events. The dances.
I remember Professor Middleburgh’s excitement out about space balls and how they might get us to Mars; his pride that this is happening in North Wales, and his dreams of what this part of the world can achieve if Wylfa Newydd and Trawsfynydd are built.
A former employee, who wishes to remain anonymous, telling me about his younger brother who had a disability but was taken on at Wylfa anyway and was found work that he could do, and even promotions to keep him challenged. “This was in the 1960s, it was just unheard of back then,” he told me with a tear in his eye.
And finally, I recall Cllr Jones explaining what he learned about nuclear energy through working at Wylfa: “It’s like a big complicated kettle… Steam as a power source… It is absolutely…” He didn’t finish his sentence. He didn’t need to. His expression of awe said it all.
New nuclear power in North Wales would be more than a small step for Welsh people. It would be a giant leap for all of Britain. I’m hopeful that, someday soon, we will be able to take it.
Thank you Zion.
What a superb article! Thank you Zion. The story goes back even further; my wife Jenny was leading the planning inquiry preparation for the first Wylfa B when it was pulled by the Thatcher Govt in 1989.