Setting a floor price on carbon taxes has become an election issue
The role of carbon taxes as a source of financial support for new nuclear plants in the U.K. is shaping up to be an election issue. Britain will have a general election in May.
The ruling Labour Party and the challengers from the Conservatives agree on only one thing, and that is no direct government subsidies for new nuclear plants.
That doesn’t stop either party from talking about carbon taxes which are transfer payments from fossil utilities and ratepayers.
It is one thing to plan a nuclear renaissance in the U.K. It is an entirely different matter to pay for it. Brownouts by 2017 are a real threat if decisions to build are not made in the next year.
The major utilities planning to build nuclear reactors in the U.K. have told the ruling government it is dreaming if it thinks the reactors will be built without a floor price on carbon that raises real money for energy infrastructure.
Read all about it exclusively at Cool Hand Nuke, a nuclear jobs portal and a whole lot more.
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4 comments:
It will be interesting to see how this plays with voters. Estimates of how the EU ETS (the EU's cap and trade system) has affected retail power prices are all over the place. But generally, coal-based utilities have actually prospered and profited under the ETS, which is one in the eye for those who want a price on carbon.
The EU has to allow money raised in allowance auctions to be put into nuclear.
Same with RGGI, the only operating cap and trade scheme in the U.S. Allowance auctions have already raised half a billion dollars, but only politically correct forms of energy can be supported with those funds.
I have mixed feelings about this. Another tax is exactly what the UK doesn't need, but then again this is only leveling the playing field because nuclear is the only power source that pays for it's biproducts (at least in the US anyway) while the dirt burners are given an environmental blank check
It's hard to beleive that this is the only way to pay for it though. At least the government can reduce the cost by denying the inevitable Greenpeace lawsuits and other interventions that do nothing for anyone and cost millions.
Is charging customers in advance off the table? At least then you could make the plant sell power at reduced cost once the reactors are built as a form of interest payment to the ratepayers.
Jack, charging customers prior to the unit coming into production has been illegal in Ontario since around 1990. That legislation I think mirrors similar legislation in other jurisdictions, but don't quote me.
I have constantly advocated introducing a "climate change contribution" at the retail level, to pay for new nuclear plants. That is, verbatim, how I think the charge should appear on your electricity bill. Try focus-testing that on people who are skeptical about nuclear; the wording seems to mollify them.
That would involve amending legislation. How willing are governments to do that? In the current public opinion environment, it appears doubtful. But it should be tried.
Utilities have wind power/green power plans for consumers, but no option to pick nuclear or coal or gas. If the decision were left to the consumers - and their wallets - the problem of antinuclear groups and funding for new plants could be solved. When green power is left without subsidies/feed in tariffs, nuclear would become the choice of consumers.
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