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Scepticism rules over nuclear programme |
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10 Apr 2013, 11:52 AM
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MP for Angus in Scotland, Mike Weir says the announcement of £31 million public funding for nuclear energy projects has shattered Westminster’s no nuclear subsidy promise, and demonstrated that the Westminster Government simply cannot keep its word.
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LibDem Business Secretary Vince Cable has announced a £31 million handout for companies involved in the nuclear energy industry, despite the coalition agreement promise that there would be ‘no public subsidy’ for new nuclear energy.
Mr Weir said: “This funding announcement breaks the Westminster Government’s promise and completely undermines the credibility of Vince Cable and the Lib Dems.
“A recent poll showed that a majority of people in Scotland are opposed to new nuclear energy. There is no justification for Westminster to be wasting public money.
“Nuclear energy cannot be delivered without eye-wateringly high levels of subsidy. Scotland has massive renewable resources and, as European Energy Commissioner Gunther Oettinger said, can be a renewable energy powerhouse of Europe.”
Meanwhile an item in Public Service, an online journal, claims that the French energy company EDF could withdraw from the £14bn Hinkley Point nuclear power plant project due to lack of funds.
Mycle Schneider, ex energy adviser to the French government, said that EDF already had debts of £33.3bn so it was by no means certain that the company would put money into Hinkley Point in Somerset.
"EDF is in big trouble. The whole of the nuclear power industry in France is in big trouble," Schneider told the BBC.
He went on: "There are a long list of issues that need to be agreed, not only the strike price (a set price for nuclear energy). Even if there is an agreement the financing package has to be put together. It's a very long-term investment of very uncertain levels of realisation."
In an open letter to the Sunday Telegraph, MPs and academics have asked the National Audit Office to look again at the Hinkley negotiations.
"We need to know what kind of nuclear deal the government is signing up to," they said. "[The strike price] will be well above the market price for electricity, meaning that UK taxpayer and energy consumer will be paying the difference. This contract will be locked in for very many decades – up to 40 years. The impact of this contract will be to shift the economic risk of building new nuclear facilities from the nuclear corporation to the consumer."
Credits:: Montrose Review & publicservice.co.uk
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