Another nuclear power station is not the answer to the energy crisis

One of the oddest responses to the gas crisis has been from a group of Conservative MPs and right-wing columnists campaigning to revive fracking. You do not need to be an energy expert to work out that by the time any investment in fracking – perhaps a decade from now – actually produces any gas, the current crisis would be history.

You’d also expect that those whose claim to govern is based on their understanding of the economy would know that any gas produced in Britain would be sold on global markets at whatever the global price happened to be. This would do nothing to reduce the misery of the millions struggling to pay their bills – though it would be great for the profits of the fossil fuel companies involved.

The economics of gas clearly confuse the Conservative mind, and nuclear power seems to baffle it ever more. How else to explain the government’s decision to buy a 35-year supply of electricity in advance at a fixed price? This is what it did in 2016, as the only way of getting EDF to build a nuclear reactor at Hinkley Point. The cost of that electricity has already risen to nearly £120/MWh even though it is still four years away from delivering any of it to homes and businesses.

Meanwhile, electricity from wind is available for under £50/MWh and those costs will continue to fall. No wonder the National Audit Office found that the government had “not sufficiently considered the costs and risks of its deal for consumers”. It calculated that the current value of the additional costs to consumer for Hinkley’s electricity would be £30bn, concluded the economic case was “marginal” and that “less favourable, but reasonable assumptions” would have meant it did not pass the government’s own tests for value for money.

Unfazed by what has to be the worst deal ever made for Britain’s energy consumers, this government now wants to build another EDF nuclear reactor at Sizewell in Suffolk. But there’s a problem: no one is willing to pay for it – not EDF, not private sector investors and not even the government itself. This is not surprising when nuclear power stations have a history of failing to arrive on time and within budget.

So the government has hit on a neat wheeze. It will compel consumers to invest in building the station with the Nuclear Finance Bill currently being debated in the House of Lords. The bill creates what is known as regulated asset base (RAB) regime for managing Sizewell’s electricity. This, the government somewhat optimistically claims, will add a mere £12 a year to bills.

If this sounds like a deal that is too good to be true, that’s because it is. The government has forgotten to mention the catch: all that consumers will get for their £12 a year will be a nuclear reactor that might work but only if their cash persuades other investors to pile in.

But there is no point in building a nuclear reactor unless someone buys its electricity. On this question, the government has been silent – and probably not by accident.

For the wheeze to work, it’s not only consumers who will be forced to pay for the construction of nuclear power plants, electricity suppliers will be forced to buy the power produced at a guaranteed price. There is no possibility that this will be lower than the electricity consumers could otherwise buy from wind and solar.

Since a growing number of suppliers now offer their customers non-nuclear electricity, it will also mean those suppliers are compelled to charge their customers for electricity they do not want. So much for freedom of choice.

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The brutal reality is that the economics of new nuclear power stations are so bad that the government has to force energy bills up twice in order to get EDF to build Sizewell. The first time by compelling consumers to pay for its construction, and the second time by compelling them to pay for its more expensive electricity.

When the business secretary defended this in the Commons, he argued that without new nuclear power, we would be unable to meet our goal of getting to net zero by 2050. But the government’s target for carbon-free electricity is not 2050, it’s 2035. Even EDF’s most optimistic (and unreliable) forecasts don’t see Sizewell generating electricity before 2034.

There are plenty of studies that show we can decarbonise our electricity system by 2035 without another new nuclear power station at Sizewell. It boils down to who do you trust more: the analysts hired by the government, or the independent academics hired by no one?

The contract for Sizewell was awarded without competition so there is no commercial confidentiality to protect. The business secretary should publish all his calculations as to the plant’s necessity and its value for money so that they can be publicly reviewed.

Only with this kind of transparency can the consumers who will have to pay for this policy be confident that it really is in the national interest and not just the interest of the Tory party.

Caroline Lucas is the Green Party MP for Brighton Pavilion