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Twenty years ago to the day, a Secretary of State for Energy was being harangued across the floor of the House. The charge was that the minister, the old Tory magnate John Wakeham, had been misleading, his schemes were madcap, his policy was a shambles and in tatters.
Twenty years on, the current Secretary of State, Ed Miliband was earlier this week enduring the ritual after announcing no fewer than six national policy statements for the future of UK energy.
His shadow Greg Clark slated the announcements as 10 years too late for an energy crisis that is already a national emergency. The irony is that in both exchanges, 20 years apart, the parties were actually in agreement on policy.
In 2009 the Tories just about agree with all Miliband's plans for nuclear expansion, carbon capture to clean up coal, and the advancement of wind. The criticism was simply: “What have you been doing for the last decade?”
Back in 1989, Wakeham was being attacked for a U-turn, the halting of the privatisation of the nation's nuclear generating fleet (the business was eventually sold off seven years later as British Energy, the last major Tory privatisation).
His shadow Frank Dobson did not disagree — Old Labour had fought hard against privatisation — it was simply too good a chance to revel in a volte-face: the equivalent of the chant of “You don't know what you are doing”.
What does resonate down the years however is Wakeham's reason for not going ahead with nuclear privatisation. In the process of lobbying support from the City and industry for a sell-off, Wakeham learned what Dobson called the “financial facts of life”.
Wakeham was forced to concede to the Commons: “Unprecedented guarantees were being sought. I am not willing to underwrite the private sector in this way.”
In 2009 we don't have privatisations any more. But we do have a significant nuclear transaction to deal with: to get at least six and as many as ten nuclear power stations built over the next decade and a half.
This so far has all gone swimmingly. The French state-owned EDF last year bought British Energy, the custodian of the nation's fleet of nukes albeit most of them in a state of disrepair. Better, EDF unveiled plans to commit up to £20 billion to build four new reactors. Even better, EDF's UK boss Vincent de Rivaz said he could do this without any UK taxpayer subsidy.
That was last year. De Rivaz this week made it plain what EDF's nuclear plans mean for the nation: not only national energy security but thousands of jobs and scores of contracts for British companies.
But there is now a caveat. In a studied aside, de Rivaz added: “There is a large consensus that recognises the importance of a strong carbon price...a strong carbon market will facilitate decarbonisation by discouraging investment in carbon polluting plant and therefore promoting investment in low carbon technology.”
What de Rivaz is talking about is the tradeable market in carbon emissions. Companies receive allowances for the carbon dioxide they emit. In the generating industry those like nuclear that emit negligible carbon can sell their allowance (a permit or a credit) to those polluting companies that need to buy them like say dirty coal-fired generators which exceed their allowance.
The money a nuclear generator will make in the future from selling carbon permits effectively underwrites the present cost of building the reactor.
The problem is that the price of carbon has halved during the recession: weakened economies are producing less carbon and the demand for carbon credits is being outstripped by the supply.
What de Rivaz is demanding is a floor to the carbon price, a threshold under which it must not fall.
The threat is implicit: whether it is agreed at the upcoming climate change summit in Copenhagen or unilaterally by a British government, unless EDF gets guaranteed carbon prices it can not possibly commit to build reactors in Britain.
This is nothing so tawdry as an EDF demand for a taxpayer subsidy.
But a demand for a carbon price floor is a backdoor tax on the consumer.
Guaranteed carbon prices mean the cost of producing electricity at gas-powered and coal-fired power stations goes up and given that gas and coal currently produce around 80% of the country's electricity, it is the consumer that ends up paying the price. It is a national carbon tax by any other name.
If you take in environmental considerations and the unspecified but massive cost of treating toxic waste, the financial cost of nuclear is already and alarmingly beginning to tot up.
