Will Britain go ahead with a new nuclear power station?

No. The government may have designated nuclear as one of the technologies it favours to satisfy the UK’s future power needs but there are plenty of reasons for it to think twice. Nuclear-generated electricity is expensive, costing about a third more than the gas-powered kind because of the massive construction costs. These are likely to stay high thanks to tighter regulation since Japan’s 2011 Fukushima disaster. The case for nuclear has always been marginal, resting mainly on the twin imperatives of decarbonisation and energy security. But the UK’s economic weakness and a greater emphasis on energy efficiency mean it can cut emissions without investing so much in non-fossil-fuel generation. The possibilities of shale gas mean the UK may need fewer imports. It makes little sense to build a handful of nuclear plants. There would be few economies of scale to offset the high costs. For a subsidy-hungry industry, nuclear critically lacks a political constituency. The coalition may be split on energy policy but the Liberal Democrats favour renewables; the Tories gas. Nuclear? Neither is wildly keen. Expect the UK to sit out the atomic renaissance next year.

Jonathan Ford