LONDON: Britain and the United States will sign a deal to work together on boosting nuclear power during US President Donald Trump’s state visit this week, the British government said, helping secure investment to fund new plants.
Britain’s government has launched a major push to expand nuclear power in recent months, pledging to invest 14 billion pounds ($19 billion) in a new plant at Sizewell C and advancing plans for a Rolls-Royce unit to build the country’s first small modular reactors (SMR).
Trump arrives in Britain for a two-day visit on Tuesday, during which he and Prime Minister Keir Starmer will announce the nuclear power tie-up. The collaboration aims to speed up new projects and investments, including plans expected to be announced by US nuclear reactor company X-Energy and Britain’s Centrica to build up to 12 advanced modular reactors in northeast England.
An 11 billion pound ($15 billion) project to develop advanced data centers powered by SMRs in central England at the former Cottam coal-fired power station set to be announced by US company Holtec International, France’s EDF and real estate partner Tritax, is also on the cards, the statement added.
“These major commitments set us well on course to a golden age of nuclear that will drive down household bills in the long run,” Starmer said on Monday.
Trump and Starmer discussed working more closely together on SMRs when they met at the US president’s golf resort in Scotland in July.
“Today’s commercial deals set up a framework to unleash commercial access in both the US and UK,” US Energy Secretary Chris Wright said in the statement.
The new tie-up will cover nuclear regulation, meaning if a reactor passes safety checks in one country, the other can use the findings to support its own checks, cutting licensing time to two years from three to four years at present.
Commenting on its new partnership deal with X-Energy, Centrica’s Group CEO Chris O’Shea said it would build a resilient, affordable, low-carbon energy system, while X-Energy’s CEO J. Clay Sell said Hartlepool was the right place for it to scale its technology in Britain given its experienced workforce and local services.
Holtec chair and CEO Kris Singh said its plan with EDF would create thousands of local jobs while drawing on the lessons from its Palisades project in Michigan, while Simone Rossi, CEO of EDF in the UK, said the plan would benefit energy security.
In a related announcement, Rolls-Royce said it had entered the US regulatory process for its SMR, paving the way for potential new jobs and investment in the US
Among the other investments expected to be announced is a deal for UK-based Urenco to supply an advanced type of low-enriched uranium to the US market.
Britain and US to sign nuclear power pact during Trump’s visit
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Britain and US to sign nuclear power pact during Trump’s visit
- Among the other investments expected to be announced is a deal for UK-based Urenco to supply an advanced type of low-enriched uranium to the US market
Russia says captured Ukraine’s Siversk in key eastern region
- The Russian army in Ukraine is “confidently advancing along the entire front,” Putin said
- He said last month his troops were advancing on Siversk, home to around 11,000 residents
MOSCOW: Russia said Thursday its troops had seized full control of Siversk, a Ukrainian city in the eastern Donetsk region where fighting has intensified in recent weeks, though Ukraine denied the key settlement had been lost.
The Russian army has been slowly but steadily grinding through eastern Ukraine and taking ground from outnumbered and outgunned Ukrainian forces, with some of the fiercest battles taking place in Donetsk.
Russia’s military chief of staff, Valery Gerasimov, said Moscow’s forces had captured Siversk in a report to President Vladimir Putin during a televised meeting with army commanders.
The Russian army in Ukraine is “confidently advancing along the entire front,” Putin said, thanking the commanders and soldiers “for their combat work.”
Putin said last month his troops were advancing on Siversk, home to around 11,000 residents before the war, claiming that the Russian offensive was “practically impossible to hold back.”
The Ukrainian army’s eastern command denied Russian claims it had taken Siversk, saying that it “remains under the control of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.”
“The enemy is trying to infiltrate Siversk in small groups, taking advantage of unfavorable weather conditions but most of these units are being destroyed on the approaches,” it added in a Facebook post.
Siversk is located about 30 kilometers (18 miles) east of Kramatorsk and Sloviansk, the last two major cities still under Ukrainian control in the Donbas — an industrial and mining region in Moscow’s sights.
Moscow earlier this month said it had captured Pokrovsk, a former road and rail hub also in Donetsk, but Kyiv claims fighting in the city is still ongoing.
Putin has said that Moscow is ready to fight on to seize the rest of the land it claims in eastern Ukraine if Kyiv does not give it up as part of a peace deal.
Eastern Ukraine has been ravaged since Russia launched its assault in February 2022, with tens of thousands of people killed and millions forced to flee their homes.
