Great British Energy Nuclear has invited people in Anglesey to name the small modular reactor project planned for Wylfa, proving that Britain can begin a decades long energy programme with the bit everyone can complete using a biro.
The naming competition opened on 14 May, with suggestions accepted until 5pm on 8 June. The GOV.UK announcement says Wylfa was selected for the UK’s first small modular reactors and that Great British Energy Nuclear contracted Rolls Royce SMR as the technology provider. The nation’s energy future is therefore proceeding in the traditional order: select the site, appoint the supplier, then ask the neighbours what they would like to call the enormous thing.
This is not an attack on names. Names matter. They help people identify buildings, pets and minor infrastructure projects that have unexpectedly acquired a communications team. A good name can make a complicated scheme feel familiar. A bad one can sound like a budget airline, a regional crime unit or an appliance recalled twice before breakfast.
The competition offers a reassuringly manageable form of public participation. Residents cannot yet redraw the reactor plans, move the site or ask the timetable to stop making that face. They can suggest a word. Democracy has been allowed into the room after the technical paperwork was moved safely out of reach.
Officials describe the project as the start of a relationship with Anglesey lasting decades. That is a considerable burden for a naming exercise. The winning suggestion will have to survive planning meetings, construction schedules, public consultations and the inevitable moment when somebody asks whether the logo resembles a warning symbol.
The sensible choice would be clear, memorable and rooted locally. The less sensible choice would involve a committee spending three months deciding whether a name feels sufficiently future facing while rejecting every suggestion that can be pronounced without a briefing note.
Still, the suggestion box is open, the deadline is printed and the clipboard is displaying the calm confidence of an institution that has mistaken a biro for shared power. Britain may soon have a nuclear landmark named by the public. The reactors are expected to generate electricity for decades. The winning name will generate arguments in the community Facebook group until at least Thursday, which is perhaps the first genuinely renewable resource in the scheme.
Source: GOV.UK.
