Tim Probert, Power Engineering International
The UK Conservative Party, widely expected to win the next general election that must take place by 3 June 2010, has criticized former energy minister Malcolm Wicks’ report for Prime Minister Gordon Brown into energy security.
Wicks concluded that the UK should triple its nuclear generation from 12-15% of total capacity to 35-40% after 2030 and should consider more state intervention to ensure that new reactors are built. In response, shadow energy minister Charles Hendry said that this would be a dangerous move, as the industry would demand subsidies to implement what amounts to government policy.
But hang on a moment. The Conservative Party supports the Renewables Obligation, which means - despite many Tory councils denying planning permission to wind farms - they are in favour of subsidizing biomass, wind, solar and other forms of low carbon power.
Nuclear power is certainly low carbon. And the UK would be less reliant on imported natural gas as indigenous supplies in the North Sea dwindle. Why not subsidize nuclear too?
Utilities like EDF, E.ON and RWE, who collectively have plans to build six to eight nuclear plants in the UK, have repeatedly called for a ‘level playing field’ with other low carbon forms of power generation - a very thinly veiled call for state help - by means of a carbon tax/fixed price, power purchase agreements or extending the Renewables Obligation to nuclear power.
And who can blame EDF, which paid a rather baffling £12bn (€13.5bn) for nuclear utility British Energy, for trying?
The current Labour government’s stock response has been ‘No State Subsidy for New Nuclear Build’, but they can afford to say that at this stage with the results of the UK’s Generic (reactor) Design Assessment not due until June 2011. This issue will not go away, but it will be for the next government to sort out.
I suspect that to effect energy policy the Tories will have to overcome their somewhat mixed ideological disposition to oppose state subsidy and adopt a more dirigiste approach. Leaving energy security to the market has failed and will continue to fail.
