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What Was Energy Fair?

Energy Fair was a group of 8 people who were opposed to the use of Nuclear in the UK.

From their website (now offline):

Members of the Energy Fair group are, alphabetically:

  • Dr Dörte Fouquet is senior partner of the law firm Becker Büttner Held (BBH), leading its Brussels office, with specialist knowledge of European law, especially law relating to subsidies and competition. She is also Director of the European Renewable Energies Federation (EREF). And she has a good knowledge of the nuclear industry.  
  • Antony Froggatt is an energy policy consultant and a senior research fellow at Chatham House. He is co-author of the The World Nuclear Industry Status Reports.
  • Jan Haverkamp is an expert consultant on nuclear energy and energy policy for Greenpeace, and a Greenpeace Facilitator in Gdansk and Prague.
  • Mark Johnston is a senior advisor at the European Centre for Policy Studies (EPC). Previously he has worked for Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, E3G and WWF.
  • Dr David Lowry is an independent research policy consultant, specialising in nuclear issues. He has written widely on that subject with articles in Energy Policy, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, New York Times, International Herald Tribune, San Francisco Examiner Science, Nature, New Scientist, Economist, New Statesman, The Guardian, and even a piece on nuclear secrecy in Penthouse.
  • Pete Roche is an energy consultant based in Edinburgh and policy adviser to the Scottish Nuclear Free Local Authorities, and the National Steering Committee of UK NFLA. Pete was co-founder of the Scottish Campaign to Resist the Atomic Menace (SCRAM), he has represented Greenpeace at international meetings and is active in several other areas relating to environmental protection and nuclear power.
  • Professor Stephen Thomas is professor at the University of Greenwich Business School, and has been a researcher in the area of energy policy for over 25 years. He specialises in the economics and policy of nuclear power, liberalisation and privatisation of the electricity and gas industries, and trade policy on network energy industries.
  • Dr Gerry Wolff, Coordinator. Gerry is also coordinator of Desertec-UK, The Kyoto2 Support Group (K2S) and Food Plus. In addition to maintaining this website, he maintains two web pages relating to nuclear power: Reports about how to decarbonise the world’s economies without nuclear power and Why we don’t need nuclear power.

Actions

The nuclear industry has been established for many years and should now be commercially viable without the need for subsidies.

That it is receiving substantial subsidies is a clear breach of the principle of fair competition. Those subsidies are working against the renewable sources of power and conservation measures that are now urgently needed (see also the Reducing subsidies page).

The subsidies enjoyed by the nuclear industry invite legal challenge. But the first step along that road is making a formal complaint to the European Commission, following the procedures that have been established under EU competition law.

Here, in reverse order by date, are news about possible legal actions or petitions, and complaints to the European Commission that we have made.

Possible legal actions, and petitions

Second formal complaint to the European Commission

Energy Fair has submitted a second formal complaint to the Directorate General for Competition of the European Commission about unlawful state aid for nuclear power and constraint on trade (Details from the Commission: Reference number: SA.32626(2011/CP). Title: Alleged subsidies to nuclear power operators in the UK).

The subjects of this complaint include new subsidies for nuclear power in the Government’s proposals for Electricity Market Reform and one of the existing subsidies that the Government proposes to retain.

The press release about this complaint, sent out in January 2012, may be seen here: LEGAL BID TO HALT NUCLEAR CONSTRUCTION (There is also an Arabic translation (PDF)). There has been extensive coverage of this news release around the world, including news reports by the BBC and the Guardian. Details of news reports are given on: News reports arising from “Legal bid to halt nuclear construction”.

Research by the Energy Fair group has identified 9 existing or proposed subsidies for nuclear power and 2 potential subsidies. They are summarised in Forms of support for nuclear power (PDF) and described more fully in the following two documents:

The following organisations and people have kindly agreed to support this complaint. Alphabetically:

First formal complaint to the European Commission

On the 22nd February 2011, a formal complaint about unlawful state aid for nuclear power has been sent to the Directorate General for Competiton of the European Commission. The documents in the complaint are:

Our press release about the complaint is here: Unlawful state aid for nuclear power.
We have received an acknowledgement of our complaint but, in early June 2011, have not yet received a response to the complaint.

Other actions

You can read their entire site from the Wayback Machine here