Haven't R-R been powering His Majesty's Ships for decades?

I don't think that you can make a bomb out of one, even though they carry a few.

More network connected battery storage is needed, this could be done over night by signing a deal with Tesla to allow their vehicle to do C2G Car2Grid.  Tesla would then need to have the discussion with its customers.  The trick is in getting all the vehicles to discharge unto the network at the correct time and in the correct phase and sequence.  This may require a newer version of a SMART meter.  If this proves successful then it could be made law that all EV made or sold in the UK must have this capability.

Other long term options are to store energy by other means like build a water reservoir at altitude that could be opened up via a turbine when power was required

Sea water is highly corrosive and marine growth causes fowling (e.g. barnacles). Ships have to be dry docked every 5 years to maintain the hull. Any sea water turbine is going to be very expensive to install and operate to deal with these issues.

I don't think that you can make a bomb out of one

You can make a "dirty bomb" though - conventional explosives scattering the not only radioactive but usually very toxic fissile material far and wide...

   - Andy.

Evaluating the coherence of a policy set involves an understanding of the true objectives. The cybernetics theorist Stafford Beer came up with POSIWID dictum (The purpose of a system is what it does). He said that there is "no point in claiming that the purpose of a system is to do what it constantly fails to do."  Something to consider.

We (and France) had a fleet of reliable nuclear power stations built and maintained using 1950's technology. I don't think credible to say that we can't operate such things safely and reliably using modern standards. Some problems are not meant to be solved.

Indeed, but you only have to violently destroy the reactor to contaminate a wide area. A ship at sea, especially a military one, is a wholly different entity.

When I first heard about small modular reactors, I was thinking of something that would arrive in a shipping container.  After all, if you can fit one in a submarine and still have room for everything else, then that's got to be about right.

Then if one wasn't enough, you could plonk down a number of them and wire them all up.  That would be great for disused sites, such as Dungeness.  Stick a bunch of them in a corner of the car park.

But it seems that "small" is a relative term.  You still end up building a whole nuclear reactor building for it.

Simon Barker said:

After all, if you can fit one in a submarine and still have room for everything else

That was my point. I understand that they are the size of a dustbin - the old galvanized steel type, not wheely-bins.

The power output must be classified, but if you compare them with a marine diesel engine, they are hardly going to make a large power station.

The nuclear reactors used to power submarines are not really relevant for civilian electricity production, they are hugely expensive and need very expensive highly enriched uranium fuel.

Moored diesel electric submarines were once used to supply power to ports and coastal towns, operation blackcurrant. Very unpopular with the submarine crews as a howling gale of cold outside air through the vessel.

I am in favour of more wind power, more solar, and the often talked about Severn barrage. Doubtful about nuclear due to the ever ballooning costs and endless delays. More interconnectors would help, but we should aim to regularly export  power and not to regard interconnectors as a substitute for building more generating capacity in the UK.