IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/enepol/v96y2016icp421-431.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Hinkley Point decision: An analysis of the policy process

Author

Listed:
  • Thomas, Stephen

Abstract

In 2006, the British government launched a policy to build nuclear power reactors based on a claim that the power produced would be competitive with fossil fuel and would require no public subsidy. A decade later, it is not clear how many, if any, orders will be placed and the claims on costs and subsidies have proved false. Despite this failure to deliver, the policy is still being pursued with undiminished determination. The finance model that is now proposed is seen as a model other European countries can follow so the success or otherwise of the British nuclear programme will have implications outside the UK. This paper contends that the checks and balances that should weed out misguided policies, have failed. It argues that the most serious failure is with the civil service and its inability to provide politicians with high quality advice – truth to power. It concludes that the failure is likely to be due to the unwillingness of politicians to listen to opinions that conflict with their beliefs. Other weaknesses include the lack of energy expertise in the media, the unwillingness of the public to engage in the policy process and the impotence of Parliamentary Committees.

Suggested Citation

  • Thomas, Stephen, 2016. "The Hinkley Point decision: An analysis of the policy process," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 96(C), pages 421-431.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:enepol:v:96:y:2016:i:c:p:421-431
    DOI: 10.1016/j.enpol.2016.06.021
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421516303044
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.enpol.2016.06.021?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bent Flyvbjerg, 2014. "What You Should Know About Megaprojects, and Why: An Overview," Papers 1409.0003, arXiv.org.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Thomas, Steve, 2018. "Russia's Nuclear Export Programme," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 121(C), pages 236-247.
    2. Thomas, Steve, 2017. "China's nuclear export drive: Trojan Horse or Marshall Plan?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 683-691.
    3. Mahalik, Mantu Kumar & Patel, Gupteswar & Sahoo, Bimal Kishore & Rahman, Mohammad Mafizur, 2023. "Impact of income inequality on renewable energy demand in south Asian economies," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 180(C).
    4. Wealer, B. & Bauer, S. & Hirschhausen, C.v. & Kemfert, C. & Göke, L., 2021. "Investing into third generation nuclear power plants - Review of recent trends and analysis of future investments using Monte Carlo Simulation," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 143(C).
    5. Turcsanyi, Richard Q., 2017. "Central European attitudes towards Chinese energy investments: The cases of Poland, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 711-722.
    6. Jenkins, Kirsten & McCauley, Darren & Warren, Charles R., 2017. "Attributing responsibility for energy justice: A case study of the Hinkley Point Nuclear Complex," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 836-843.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Diane Coyle & Marianne Sensier, 2020. "The imperial treasury: appraisal methodology and regional economic performance in the UK," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 54(3), pages 283-295, March.
    2. Alexander Budzier & Bent Flyvbjerg & Andi Garavaglia & Andreas Leed, 2019. "Quantitative Cost and Schedule Risk Analysis of Nuclear Waste Storage," Papers 1901.11123, arXiv.org.
    3. Love, Peter E.D. & Ika, Lavagnon A. & Ahiaga-Dagbui, Dominic D., 2019. "On de-bunking ‘fake news’ in a post truth era: Why does the Planning Fallacy explanation for cost overruns fall short?," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 126(C), pages 397-408.
    4. Shutian Zhou & Guofang Zhai & Yijun Shi, 2018. "What Drives the Rise of Metro Developments in China? Evidence from Nantong," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(8), pages 1-20, August.
    5. Ginés de Rus, 2015. "La política de infraestructuras en España. Una reforma pendiente," Policy Papers 2015-08, FEDEA.
    6. Ginés de Rus & Javier Campos & Daniel Graham & M. Pilar Socorro & Jorge Valido, 2020. "Evaluación Económica de Proyectos y Políticas de Transporte: Metodología y Aplicaciones. Parte 1: Metodología para el análisis coste-beneficio de proyectos y políticas de transporte," Working Papers 2020-11, FEDEA.
    7. Muhammad Zeeshan Fareed & Qin Su, 2022. "Project Governance and Project Performance: The Moderating Role of Top Management Support," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(5), pages 1-13, February.
    8. Peter Adekunle & Clinton Aigbavboa & Opeoluwa Akinradewo & Ayodeji Oke & Douglas Aghimien, 2022. "Construction Information Management: Benefits to the Construction Industry," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(18), pages 1-17, September.
    9. Antonio Estache & Stéphane Saussier, 2014. "Public-Private Partnerships and Efficiency: A Short Assessment," ifo DICE Report, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 12(3), pages 08-13, October.
    10. Avri Eitan, 2021. "Promoting Renewable Energy to Cope with Climate Change—Policy Discourse in Israel," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(6), pages 1-17, March.
    11. Stewart, W.R. & Velez-Lopez, E. & Wiser, R. & Shirvan, K., 2021. "Economic solution for low carbon process heat: A horizontal, compact high temperature gas reactor," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 304(C).
    12. Camos Daurella,Daniel & Estache,Antonio, 2017. "Regulating water and sanitation network services accounting for institutional and informational constraints," Policy Research Working Paper Series 8149, The World Bank.
    13. Ana-Belén Alonso-Conde & Javier Rojo-Suárez, 2020. "On the Effect of Green Bonds on the Profitability and Credit Quality of Project Financing," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(16), pages 1-19, August.
    14. Faye Duchin, 2017. "Resources for Sustainable Economic Development: A Framework for Evaluating Infrastructure System Alternatives," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(11), pages 1-15, November.
    15. Lan Luo & Yue Yang & Junwei Zheng & Jianxun Xie, 2022. "Measuring Project Governance of Mega Infrastructure in China: A Scale Development Study," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(2), pages 1-20, January.
    16. Muhammad Zeeshan Fareed & Qin Su & Muhammad Umer Aslam, 2023. "Transformational Leadership and Project Success: The Mediating Role of Psychological Empowerment," SAGE Open, , vol. 13(1), pages 21582440231, February.
    17. Julie de Brux & Frédéric Marty, 2014. "IPPP - Risks and opportunities An economic perspective," Post-Print halshs-00990951, HAL.
    18. Rebecca Vine, 2020. "Riskwork in the construction of Heathrow Terminal 2," SPRU Working Paper Series 2020-20, SPRU - Science Policy Research Unit, University of Sussex Business School.
    19. Nelson, Sarah & Allwood, Julian M., 2021. "The technological and social timelines of climate mitigation: Lessons from 12 past transitions," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 152(C).
    20. Zhao Zhai & Ming Shan & Amos Darko & Albert P. C. Chan, 2021. "Corruption in Construction Projects: Bibliometric Analysis of Global Research," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(8), pages 1-21, April.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:enepol:v:96:y:2016:i:c:p:421-431. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/enpol .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.