Headline News
U.K.'s Energy Secretary Favors Subsidy for Wind Energy
7/27/2010
Energy Secretary Chris Huhne favors harnessing both offshore and onshore wind power, saying the U.K. won’t subsidize a new generation of nuclear power stations.
Energy Secretary Chris Huhne favors harnessing both offshore and onshore wind power, saying the U.K. won’t subsidize a new generation of nuclear power stations.
Huhne said in an interview with Sky News today that wind energy deserves government aid because the industry is in its infancy, while nuclear power has been well established over decades. The Dogger Bank in the north east of England, off the North Sea, was an area for development for offshore wind turbines, he said.
“There are two different types of subsidy; one is that we have an overall framework to make sure that we get low-carbon electricity and that we become more energy self-sufficient -- that will be available to everybody” Huhne told Sky News in an interview ahead of a July 27 announcement to Parliament.
Huhne said the government will “encourage” wind technology at the beginning and when it is cost-competitive, it can “fly on its own.”
“No special subsidies for nuclear compared with these infant technologies,” he said.
The Sunday Telegraph, which published an interview with the Liberal Democrat Huhne containing similar comments, said his remarks are likely to alarm the Conservatives, the senior partner in the coalition government, which favor nuclear power.
Under the coalition agreement, which set out the government’s program, Liberal Democrat lawmakers are allowed to abstain in any vote on nuclear power which reflects the party’s long-held opposition to it, the paper said.