Hello and welcome to Spectator Radio.

I'm Kate Andrews, and today we'll be discussing the future of energy, specifically nuclear energy,

and what role it can play in helping the UK to achieve its target of net zero carbon emissions by 2050.

This podcast is kindly sponsored by EDF.

The UK has been coal-free for two months now, but there's no doubt that we're going to need

more energy sources in the future. Fans of nuclear energy say it's one of the most efficient,

guaranteed ways to produce that kind of energy and guarantee the UK's energy independence, but its critics say that it's costly, a hindrance to the local neighborhood, and is a bad deal for the taxpayer.

To discuss all this in further detail, I'm joined today by Julia Pike, Nuclear Development Director at EDF Energy,

Bim Afalami, Conservative Member of Parliament for Hitchin and Harpidon, and Simon Taylor,

leading strategy communications consultant, and author of The Fallen Rise of Nuclear Power in Britain,

a History. So, Simon, I'll start with you. Can you give us a quick history lesson about

the development of nuclear power in Britain? Well, Britain pioneered civil nuclear power. For many

years, it was a great success. But things started going wrong, partly because the UK insisted on

building lots of different reactors of different types and through a series of

setbacks people eventually all but gave up on nuclear power at least in terms of building new

reactors but from around the early part of the 21st century a combination of North Sea oil and

gas starting to run out and an emphasis on climate change meant that there

was a new case for building new nuclear power and at the same time there were new reactor types

available and as a result particularly with the growing emphasis on climate change in British

energy policy the case for new nuclear power has very much come back onto the agenda. We have

one new station under

construction and the government recently has consulted on the second one with probably more to come.

...