The Coalition Secretary of State for Energy has spoken out this week about huge legacy nuclear decommissioning costs. According to the Guardian Chris Huhne disclosed a £4bn black hole in what he described as ‘unavoidable’ nuclear power station decommissioning and waste costs.
Huhne has brought the costs to the attention of the Cabinet and pointed out that the total budget for the energy and climate change department is limited to £3bn annually. Huhne described his department as “not so much the Departement of Energy and Climate Change, as the Department of nuclear legacy and bits of other things“….He went on to say that what we are effectively paying for here is “decades of cheap nuclear electricity for which we have suddenly got a massive postdated bill“.
Hulne is however commited to the spend saying that there are genuine nuclear safety issues that mean it has to be paid for. Meanwhile questions are being raised as to how this will affect the rest of the energy efficiency and climate change programmes. No further details regarding how the new government will support renewable energy have been issued.
The new Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change is in the ironic position of being responsible for determining new nuclear power stations when he is strongly anti-nuclear. Under the coalition agreement Lib Dems are not allowed to vote on the nuclear issue. Hulne is however likely to have a pro-nuclear mandate due to support from the Conservatives and Labour. Despite abdicating the right to vote on nuclear, it does not appear that the Lib Dems are going to keep wholly quiet on the issue.
