page_title: Nuclear power in the United Kingdom
section_title: 20th century
hierarchical_section_title: Nuclear power in the United Kingdom / History / 20th century
caption_attribution_description: Calder Hall, United Kingdom - The world's first commercial nuclear power station. First connected to the national power grid on 27 August 1956 and officially opened by Queen Elizabeth II on 17 October 1956
context_page_description: Nuclear power in the United Kingdom generates around 19% of the country's electricity as of 2020, projected to rise to a third by 2035. The UK has 15 operational nuclear reactors at seven locations, as well as nuclear reprocessing plants at Sellafield and the Tails Management Facility operated by Urenco in Capenhurst.
  The United Kingdom established the world's first civil nuclear programme, opening a nuclear power station, Calder Hall at Windscale, England, in 1956. At the peak in 1997, 26% of the nation's electricity was generated from nuclear power. Since then several reactors have closed and by 2012 the share had declined to 19%. The older AGR reactors have been life-extended, and further life-extensions across the AGR fleet are likely.
  In October 2010 the British Government gave permission for private suppliers to construct up to eight new nuclear power plants. The Scottish Government, with the backing of the Scottish Parliament, has stated that no new nuclear power stations will be constructed in Scotland. In March 2012, E.ON UK and RWE npower announced they would be pulling out of developing new nuclear power plants, placing the future of nuclear power in the UK in doubt.
context_section_description: The United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) was established in 1954 as a statutory corporation to oversee and pioneer the development of nuclear energy within the United Kingdom.
  The first station to be connected to the grid, on 27 August 1956, was Calder Hall, although the production of weapons-grade plutonium was the main reason behind this power station. Calder Hall was the world's first nuclear power station to deliver electricity in commercial quantities (although the 5 MW "semi-experimental" reactor at Obninsk in the Soviet Union was connected to the public supply in 1954).
  In February 1966 it was announced that the first prototype fast breeder reactor in the United Kingdom would be constructed in Dounreay, Scotland, at a cost of £30 million.
  British Nuclear Fuels Limited (BNFL) was established in February 1971 from the demerger of the production division of the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA). In 1984 BNFL became a public limited company, British Nuclear Fuels plc, wholly owned by the UK government.
  In December 1979, in the wake of the industrial disputes of the Winter of Discontent and the 1979 oil crisis, the new Thatcher government announced a new long-term nuclear power programme.  The existing state National Nuclear Corporation would complete its existing planned second generation AGR builds, and would develop a new programme of building one Westinghouse designed Pressurised Water Reactor (PWR) per year for at least a decade from 1982 (about 15 GWe in total). However, in 1981 the Select Committee on Energy and the Monopolies and Mergers Commission produced reports criticising the CEGB and government's demand forecasting and investment assessment justifying the programme. From 1982, after Nigel Lawson replaced David Howell as Secretary of State for Energy, the government began rowing back from this large proposal, in part because the government were beginning to consider privatising the electricity industry.
  In the end, only the Sizewell B nuclear power plant from the PWR programme was built, between 1987 and 1995. It began producing power for the national grid in February 1995. Its construction followed a four-year, 16 million-word public inquiry. As of 2019 it is the most recent nuclear plant to be constructed in the United Kingdom. Sizewell B was intended to be the first of a smaller series of four new identical power stations, but the rest were dropped as uneconomic in the early 1990s when it was decided to privatise the electric power industry so low interest rate government finance would no longer be available.
  A Thermal Oxide Reprocessing Plant (THORP) was opened at Sellafield in 1994. Construction had begun in the 1970s and cost £2.4 billion.
  In 1996 the UK's eight most advanced nuclear plants, seven advanced gas-cooled reactors and one pressurized water reactor, were privatised as British Energy, raising £2.1 billion. The remaining Magnox reactors remained in public ownership as Magnox Electric. On 30 January 1998 Magnox Electric was merged into BNFL as BNFL Magnox Generation.
caption: Calder Hall power station was first connected to the national power grid on 27 August 1956
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