It’s official, the Conservatives have formed a coalition government with the Liberal Democrats. As a result we have a Liberal Democrat cabinet minister for energy and climate change – Chris Huhne.

In 2007 Chris Hulne said “The doubling of our electricity generation from wind in a little more than a year shows what renewables can do, and gives the lie to the need for a new generation of nuclear power.“. It is ironic therefore that he will ultimately be responsible for nuclear power station planning applications.

Under the Conservative – Liberal Democrat coalition negotiations agreements reached yesterday, the parties agreed to put in place the following measures:

- Establishment of smart grid and roll-out of smart meters
- Establishment of feed-in tariff systems in electricity- as well as the maintenance of banded ROCs
- Measures to promote a huge increase in anaerobic digestion
- Creation of a green investment bank
- Home energy improvements
- Retention of energy performance certificates but scrapping HIPs
- Measures to encourage marine energy
- Establishment of emissions performance standard to prevent coal- fire power stations being built uless they are equipped with sufficient Carbon Capture Storage (CCS)
- Establishment of a high speed rail network
- No third runway at Heathrow or additional runways at Gatwick and Stansted
- Replacement of Air Passenger Duty with per flight duty
- Floor price for carbon
- Measures to make import or possession of illegal timber a criminal offence
- Measures to promote green spaces and wildlife corridors
- Mandating a national recharging network for electric and plug- in hybrid vehicles
- Continuation of public investment in CCS for 4 power stations
- Reduction of central government carbon emissions by 10% in 12 months
- Increase in the renewable energy target subject to the advice of the Climate Change Committee

The difficult issue is nuclear power. Liberal Democrats have long opposed any nuclear construction whilst the Conservatives are committed to allowing the replacement of nuclear power stations. A process has therefore been agreed which involves:

- The government completing the drafting of a national planning statement and putting it before Parliament.
- Specific agreement that a Liberal Democrat spokesman will speak agains the planning statement but that Lib Dem MP’s will abstain: and
- Clarity that this will not be regarded as an issue of confidence

Nuclear is therefore an area where the Lib Dems appear to have been at least partially gagged.