Our energy strategy is still underpowered On the face of it, Hitachi's decision to invest in the UK's nuclear energy programme is welcome news. The Japanese technology group is to buy Horizon Nuclear Power from its German owners, who threw Britain's long-term energy strategy into disarray by putting the joint venture up for sale, thereby threatening to scupper the Government's aim to build five nuclear plants over the next 15 years. Hitachi's purchase of Horizon for an estimated £700 million - far more than had been expected - has revived the Coalition's ambitions to reduce the country's reliance on gas, and should help meet our hugely expensive obligations to cut carbon emissions. Yet it also highlights the vulnerability of Britain's energy supplies to decisions way beyond our national control. Even if Hitachi's commitment proves less fickle than that of its predecessors, who pulled out amid the anti-nuclear backlash following the Fukushima reactor meltdown, it still leaves us dependent on other foreign suppliers - such as EDF, owned by the French state - to build the remaining plants envisaged by the Government. Furthermore, the economics of nuclear are always fraught with uncertainty, with huge capital costs and slow returns: it is unclear what was promised by the Government, in its talks with Hitachi before its purchase of Horizon, to make the investment and risk worthwhile. Although the first of Hitachi's power stations will not be adding electricity to the grid until 2020 at the earliest, we must be grateful that a viable nuclear programme now appears to be back on track. In the interim, we will be worryingly reliant upon energy from volatile parts of the world and on heavily subsidised renewable technologies, which cannot produce anything like the amount of energy the country needs. The move away from gas signalled yesterday by Ed Davey, the Energy Secretary, is also puzzling, since there are unexploited shale deposits in this country, and his own department recently insisted that gas would remain a key part of the energy mix. What is particularly alarming is to hear ministers talk about the importance of diversifying electricity supplies in order to "stop the lights going out" - a possibility that should never have needed to be contemplated. However, a decade of dithering by Labour - abetted by the Liberal Democrats" previous hostility to nuclear power - has left Britain at the mercy of events, with precious little clarity or consistency in its energy policy to date. Mr Davey cited Hitachi's decision as proof that a proper framework is now in place, and that international investors have "a huge amount of confidence" in the Government's strategy. It is gratifying to learn that someone has.