Sir Menzies Campbell, Liberal Democrat leader, has branded the move by the UK government towards a new generation of nuclear power stations unaffordable, unecessary and a bad deal for taxpayers.
“Taxpayers are already liable to pay up to £90bn to clean up after the existing generation of nuclear power stations.
“The taxpayers are picking up the tab because when the last government privatised British Nuclear Fuels, investors refused to shoulder the risk.
“There is no indication that they are any more willing to take on that risk this time.
“Nuclear power is not attractive to the private sector without massive state subsidies, either in the form of grants for construction, tax breaks, the assumption of environmental risks or the rigging of the market to guarantee prices in the future.
“The government has not come clean on who will subsidise nuclear power.
“Mark my words: it will be the taxpayers and consumers in the form of higher energy bills.”
Sir Menzies Campbell, Liberal Democrat leader
Edward Davey, spokesman for trade and industry is concerned that the government may try to hide the subsidy through a new carbon pricing proposal. If nuclear power is deemed carbon-free, then carbon-producing energy sources like clean coal technology would have to subsidise nuclear. This option obviously does not take into account carbon produced by the mining and transport of uranium and the building and operating of atomic plants.
Via: Yahoo! News
Comments:
Not to mention other subsidies to nuclear. I don’t know what the legal regime is over there, but in the U.S. the government underwrites the nuclear industry’s tort liability for a catastrophic accident above a certain dollar amount, and then indemnifies them beyond a still higher amount. Add in Energy Department subsidies to the processing and disposal of fuel, and Interior Department subsidies to mining, and you’ve got a corporate welfare queen the size of Gilbert Grape’s mom.
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