UK Parliament / Open data

New Nuclear Power

Proceeding contribution from Mike Weatherley (Conservative) in the House of Commons on Thursday, 7 February 2013. It occurred during Backbench debate on New Nuclear Power.

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. If I may, I will ask him to listen to my concluding remarks, which will show conclusively that by not subsidising nuclear, we will have a greener economy, rather than a carbon-dependent one.

If new nuclear is unable to meet the free market test, showing that it is competitively viable in the long term, it should yield to other forms of energy, particularly green forms of energy. When it comes to striking a price now, there are so many unknown variables that that this can be done only by accepting that any price agreed will need future Government support. Members in favour of nuclear seem to accept that, which is horrific, given the coalition agreement.

The first of these unknown variables is the decommissioning of nuclear power sites. Decommissioning is a multi-faceted and complex process in which costs are hard to estimate accurately. The Public Accounts Committee last week noted the huge decommissioning failures at Sellafield, where the clean-up will take 120 years and cost £100 billion—twice the original estimate.

Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
558 c466 
Session
2012-13
Chamber / Committee
House of Commons chamber
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