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Nuclear’s hidden subsidy
ON RADIO FOUR’S Today programme on September 7, John
Hutton MP, Secretary of State, Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform,
repeated what the government has said on previous occasions: that no
subsidies would be provided for new nuclear power stations.
But in the UK, as in many other countries around the
world, nuclear power enjoys a very large subsidy because it is required
to pay only a small fraction of the cost of insuring fully against a
Chernobyl-style disaster or worse. Details of the size of this subsidy
are given in Helen Caldicott's book, Nuclear Power Is Not The Answer
(ISBN-13 978-1-59558-067-2).
If the government is serious in saying that there
would be no subsidies for nuclear power, then it should require the
nuclear industry to pay the full cost of insuring against nuclear
disasters, without any limitations on liabilities.
Dr Gerry Wolff
Anglesey
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