Britain’s heading for a nuclear power crunch. Blame the French.

By Nicholas Earl | 10/22/2024 06:23 AM EDT

A once proud fleet of power plants is about to be reduced to one last, lonely nuclear facility.

A general view of the turbine hall of the Sizewell B nuclear power facility in Sizewell.

The U.K. has ended up “too reliant on French energy,” said ex-Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng. Pool photo by Leon Neal

LONDON — When Queen Elizabeth II opened the U.K.’s first domestic nuclear power plant in the 1950s, the world came to watch.

Scientists and statesmen attended from nearly 40 countries. It was, said Richard Butler, Lord Privy Seal, an “epoch-making” moment.

By the 1990s — the sector’s peak — the U.K.’s nuclear fleet supplied over a quarter of the country’s electricity capacity.

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Yet by 2028, the country will be down to its one last, lonely nuke.

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