We know the Government wants to have new nuclear power stations, but that's about the sum of the detail so far.

We don't know how power companies would be enticed to spend the billions necessary, we don't know where the decommissioning liabilities would lie. We don't know what market incentives and support might prop up nuclear in the energy free market if electricity prices tumble and its operation is threatened. It's not that long ago that the commercial group British Energy had to be bailed out by the Government because it plunged into dire financial difficulty.

It had been hoped that further clues as to how the nuclear aspiration would be realised would be given in the Energy White Paper, due out next month. The Department of Trade and Industry is considering whether it will still publish the white paper and conduct an extended consultation on the nuclear issue in parallel. But to do so may be to risk repeating the fait accompli approach by Tony Blair which angered opponents to nuclear power and triggered the Greenpeace appeal.

Even if the Government goes ahead with the publication of the white paper and has some detail of implementation to offer the current UK industry and potential new developers, there will still remain the uncertainty that the whole issue is still under review.

Only a few days ago British Energy said that it was seeking partners to build new nuclear, including private equity. But it will find it hard to engage potential collaborators and investors in projects with the future of nuclear in such open challenge. Yesterday the company said that it was very disappointed at the ruling and warned that the country faced an energy gap if new schemes were not assured.

There is an undoubted energy shortage looming in the next ten years, but it is one that the Government has been free to address for the last ten years. Now it has finally done so, it has done so too hastily without due regard for the consultation process, according to the judge who ruled on Greenpeace's appeal, and has set back the process considerably and clouded it in doubt.

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