On SMR fantasies of drop a container in and leave it, they will have at minimum, staffing and skill requirements comparable to the reactors being operated on our submarines. Because that's essentially what they are. I don't know the UK's submarine fuel-lifetimes, but cold-war era Russian stuff would be refuelled roughly every 10 years. (Source: Sub Brief - narrated by a retired US sub commander).
They have additional overheads in the form of staff to operate the associated substations, and deal with the red tape that is the UK energy market.
Nuclear Site Licensing is not straight forward and will mandate additional overheads. For example transmission routes associated with most nuclear reactors in the UK must have at least 4 independent circuits; and sources of alternate generation to allow for control in a loss of supply situation. Typically a bank of diesels for that.
Basically, the only places SMR's will be approved are on existing or disused nuclear sites that have had them before; without extensive investment into the transmission network to comply with nuclear site licensing.
As I am sure you can imagine, from a planning permisison perspective; if you start today and know exactly what you want to build; that is easily a 10-year process through the National Infrastructure Commission. And then people wonder why it's cheaper to build renewables in bulk!
A/C again, because in the industry.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
