EDF SA’s Hinkley Point Nuclear Power Stations As Energy Company Plan New Reactor (image from The Guardian)

The coalition agreement said that any new nuclear power plants were to be built by the private sector, without subsidy and only after a solution was found about where to store high-level nuclear waste.

Instead, no decision on long-term storage of nuclear waste, and a “strike price” of £92.50 for Hinkley C for a 35 year contract. At a time of very high fuel bills, this is nearly twice the market price for energy and will rise in line with inflation for 35 years.

That guarantees billions in income not for the private sector but for state-owned foreign companies; the new plant in Somerset will be owned, built and operated by EDF – 85% owned by the French state – with the help of China General Nuclear Power Group, which is 100% owned by the Beijing government. And after the 35 years, they can walk away from the UK with their profits and leave all the waste behind for thousands of years.

It is very likely to be delivered late and over-budget. Similar new nuclear plants at Flamanville in France and Olkiluoto in Finland are proving more difficult than expected: the Finnish reactors are expected to be at least seven years late and at least £1.4bn over budget; Flamanville is two years late and believed to be as much as £2bn over budget.

Three legal challenges to the plant already exist: Ireland’s counterpart to the National Trust will go to the high court in London in December to ask for a judicial review (the plant is only 150 miles from the shores of Ireland, closer than Leeds, but the government didn’t consult with the Irish government); Greenpeace is challenging the plant on the grounds that there is no long-term nuclear storage facility in place; The European commission must also decide whether the UK is allowed to offer nuclear power consortiums an agreed “strike price” for their electricity, which critics say equates to a subsidy and is anti-competitive.

What the Green Party want instead

The most effective way of tackling fuel poverty and high energy bills is to reduce the overall amount of energy we need to keep our homes warm and to cut energy waste. We can do that immediately, not wait 10-15 years for the first nuclear power plant to come online. We need an ambitious economy-wide target for energy demand reduction.

We need to invest in clean British energy by developing the UK’s huge wind, wave and solar potential. If we also slash energy waste, we will keep the lights on and create thousands of new jobs.

We need to boost renewable energy and giving local people more ownership of our energy system. That means better support for projects owned and developed by community groups and independent generators by introducing a decentralised generation feed in tariff. Again, this can be done immediately, rather than wait 10-15 years for the first nuclear power plant. Greens would radically democratise our energy system, end the dominance of the big six energy companies, and be likely to result in lower electricity prices too.

Craig Bennett, director of policy at Friends of the Earth: “It’s an unbelievable wasted opportunity to spend this money in this way when the UK itself is an acknowledged leader in energy efficiency. Why give subsidies to an industry where we are not the leader any more?”

If we want to shift to a clean, secure, low-carbon energy system during this century, the time to start is now. Instead, Britain is taking a sharply different route to Germany, which has decided to phase out nuclear power, and Italy, which has scrapped a planned nuclear programme. France, traditionally the nuclear enthusiast, has pledged to cut atomic power to 50% of its electricity mix from 75% today.