Nuclear Power Development in Britain Equivalent to France

Is there any way for nuclear power in the UK to be equivalent to nuclear power in France by the present day?

For reference, 19.6% of energy produced in the UK in 1996 was nuclear. 78.8% of France's 2004 output was nuclear.

The first commercial nuclear power plant in France was built in 1965. The first in the UK was in 1956. The big "push" in France was following the energy crisis in the 70s.
 
I could be wrong but I think part of the reason why the UK didn't go nuclear was that they used coal fired power stations and still had large deposits of coal that were controlled by the government run National Coal Board. If you want to make nuclear more attractive I suppose you could start with a point of departure that does away with the government nationalising the coal industry back in 1946. Unlike in our timeline where the coal mines were subsidised a fair bit to keep them open and the associated workers employed, if they're run by the private sector the more uneconomical ones will be closed down earlier as foreign coal starts to become cheaper. With not having to fire tens of thousands of people if they move to nuclear energy as in our timeline it might be much more appealing tp the alternate government.
 
It's tricky to have Britain doing a lot of investment in nuclear power for a couple of reasons. First, by the 1980s you start having a fairly significant anti-nuclear lobby, which means that you really must have started major investment earlier than that so that there will be enough momentum to overcome those issues. Second, prior to about 1970 or so, oil and coal are too cheap and too easily available for major investment to start. Together, that means that you have a 10-year window, with earlier dates being much preferred, for a big nuclear build-out to start. Unfortunately for the OP, Britain--in contrast to France--also has large native oil and coal reserves, and relied (I believe) much more heavily on coal than oil for electricity (France got about 39% of its electricity from oil). That meant that they were less affected by the '70s price shock than France. Further, the '70s is about when all that native oil and gas was being discovered and started being produced. All that makes it very difficult for Britain to start a major nuclear program.

Perhaps if you have several major disasters in the early North Sea exploration, so that BP, Shell, et. al. become soured on them and turn instead towards Nigeria, South America, etc. for more oil/gas, the British government sees nuclear power as a good way to reduce dependence on unreliable foreign producers of oil (uranium is mainly produced by Canada and Australia--together they amount for a little more than 50% of modern production) and to supplant falling coal reserves. But that's kind of a stretch. Perhaps more useful would be avoding Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, so that anti-nuclear protestors have to work off of more theoretical arguments than they could IOTL. That might make them weak enough that the Brits might start investment in the '80s, although the Thatcher government doesn't strike me as being particularly friendly to the kind of governmental backing that would be needed for that.
 
Well, one thing about the MAGNOX design was the good containment. I've brought up the May 1, 1978 explosion at Berkeley before. (During filming of "The Pirate Planet", some BBC Technician put a bit too much explosive in a prop cabinet that got blown up on the reactor cap. Nothing was damaged.) However, if the MAGNOX designs are safe enough to film SF series around...
 
I could be wrong but I think part of the reason why the UK didn't go nuclear was that they used coal fired power stations and still had large deposits of coal that were controlled by the government run National Coal Board.

Intresting thing about the X hundreds of year of coal left, is according to reports a year or two ago on 'peak coal', there is no independent assessment of coal reserves...bit like Saudi oil reserves......
 
An idea i had for a TL, dealing with Hugh Dalton staying as Chancellor during Attlee's Ministry and leading a moderate Labour Party dominating government well into the 1960s - you see the National Coal Board eventually become denationalised (to become a derigiste 'national champion') leading to a smoother shut down of mines (helped by tougher Trade Union legislation ala 'In Place of Strife') and a switch to nuclear power. I was playing with the idea of a major disaster in the North Sea leading to the oil being underused.

Eventually you get a far more serious 70s oil crisis thanks to a militant, enlarged United Arab Republic - this leads Britain electing a radical government (haven't decided if its Powellite or Bennite!) that basically fights to make Britain a self-sufficent state, with energy being the biggy.

Actually I think I'll go back to the drawing board, i totally forgot about this TL...
 
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