It is important to recognize that senior executives of private power companies operating in this country, such as Vincent de Rivaz, Chief Executive Officer of EDF Energy, have said that they are seeking no subsidies for any new nuclear plants they may build in Great Britain.

Here are some of the more egregious subsidies currently enjoyed by the commercial nuclear industry, as revealed in a series of written ministerial answers to various MPs from Labour, Conservative, Liberal Democrat and Green Parties in the past two months in the UK Parliament.

Labour’s Paul Flynn was told in an omnibus reply by energy minister Charles Hendry (Hansard, 10 June : Columns 221-222W ) that the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) directly commissions research in support of its management mission, which in 2010-11 totalled £11 million to research expenditure.

The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council's (EPSRC) current nuclear research portfolio totals £8.5 million, and in 2008-09 the Research Councils UK Energy Programme spent £1.7 million on eight projects “directly relevant to long-term nuclear waste management and facility decommissioning.”

The Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) meanwhile has allocated £676,000 for 2010-11 and £2.6 million in future years to decommissioning and waste management research, and in 2009-10 they provided funding of £277,000 to projects in this area.In the same financial year, 2009-10, the Environment Agency spent some £180,000 in grant in aid on regulatory research relevant to nuclear waste and decommissioning (approximately 25% of the research costs in that year).

As a member of the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) the UK pays an annual subscription of around £0.6 million (depending on exchange rates) and also subscribes to the NEA's Databank, which contains technical information from other NEA members, at a cost of £350,000 a year. In 2007-08 the NDA provided £5 million to support the establishment of Energus (formerly referred to as The Nuclear Academy) as a centre of excellence for skills, training and business support.

The UK allocated and paid a total of just under US$ 9.3 million and Euros 16.4 million to the United Nations’ atomic watchdog, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) for 2010. A similar sum, but allowing for inflation, exchange rate differences, and the likely outcome of current ongoing budget negotiations among member states and the agency, has been set aside for 2011.

Conservative Zac Goldsmith was subsequently told by the energy minister (Hansard, 17 June : Column 539W) that the UK has paid a total of 116.95 million euros and US$ 84.42 million to the IAEA over the past 10 years.

Mr Hendry further informed another Labour MP, Tom Watson that his department’s Office for Nuclear Development - responsible for facilitating new nuclear build in the UK – has a total budget for 2010-11 of £3 million. (Hansard, 10 June: Column 223W). He added “These figures do not include the Department's wider work on, policy associated with nuclear security, safety and non-proliferation.”

He later told Zac Goldsmith (Hansard, 27 July : Column 889W) “On new nuclear power, the Government are clear that there will be no public subsidy,” and that “The Government will carefully scrutinise other areas, as necessary, to ensure that there is no subsidy for new nuclear going forwards.”

The most significant, but ultimately unquantifiable, subsidy enjoyed by nuclear operators is the limitation on liability in post major radiological accident situations (such as Chernobyl in Ukrainein 1986, which has cost Ukrainian and other European taxpayers conservatively US$ tens of billions to date).

Green MP Dr Caroline Lucas was told by Mr Hendry (Hansard14 July: Column 795-6W) that “The UK has an established and robust regulatory framework that ensures the nuclear industry effectively manages the risks associated with the operation of civil nuclear installations and facilities. As a result of this approach the probability of a beyond-design basis accident is considered to be exceedingly small, the possible costs for which it would not be meaningful to estimate in advance.”

He added “We are currently working on amendments to the 1965 Nuclear Installations Act to implement the changes to the Paris and Brussels conventions on limitation of liability, agreed in 2004. These changes set a minimum operator liability of €700 million but there is discretion to set a higher limit or have it uncapped. In the circumstances we are reviewing the limitation of operators' liability. …we intend to consult on our proposed changes to the 1965 Act, including limitation of liability, later this year.”

Following his presentation of his department’s Annual Energy Statement to Parliament, ChrisHuhne told fellow Liberal Democrat Duncan Hames, who asked whether he would raise the limit on the exposure of nuclear operators to catastrophes to an equally demanding level as the $20 billion plus BP are paying for the Gulf of Mexico oil platform disaster “one of the things that we are looking at in the context of making sure that there is no public subsidy for nuclear is the contingent liability regime and ensuring that there are no holes in it." (Hansard, 27 July: Column 874).

I would recommend those who think the nuclear industry are being treated inequitably on subsidies, to read a report on Nuclear Subsidies, which I helped co-author for the independent Energy Fair Group, available on line at:
http://www.mng.org.uk/gh/private/nuclear_subsidies1.pdf.

Dr David Lowry
environmwental policy and research consultant