T HE GOALS of the British government have recently seemed mysterious even to those within it. But on at least one issue, policymakers have had clear purpose: climate change. While some countries dawdle, Britain has had a comprehensive climate policy for more than a decade. In 2016, even as the country reeled from the Brexit vote, Parliament approved new targets for slashing carbon emissions. Meeting them, however, just got more difficult.

On January 17th Hitachi, a Japanese company, said it would shelve plans for two nuclear power stations, at Wylfa Newydd in Anglesey and at Oldbury in Gloucestershire. The announcement came just two months after Toshiba, another Japanese firm, ditched plans for a nuclear plant in Cumbria.

The nuclear companies that remain, France’s EDF and China General Nuclear (CGN) , continue to plug their projects, in which they are partners. CGN is taking the lead on a plan to build a station at Bradwell, in Essex. EDF is trudging forwards with public consultations for Sizewell C, a nuclear project in Suffolk, fielding questions this week at the Trimley Sports and Social Club. EDF is already building Hinkley Point C in Somerset, with CGN as a minority investor. Yet despite such efforts, it looks increasingly plausible that Britain’s nuclear programme may be turned on its head.

Nuclear power has been key to the government’s clean-electricity strategy. In the past decade power generated by coal has plunged and that from wind has soared. Nuclear stations supply about a fifth of Britain’s power (see chart). As coal and nuclear plants retire, the government expects new nuclear stations to help fill the gap, supplying ten new gigawatts of stable, reliable power by 2032. But there are growing doubts about whether some of the proposed nuclear plants will materialise. Investors have become wary of nuclear’s staggering upfront costs, delays and rising competition from wind and solar. In the effort to woo Hitachi the government offered, among other things, to take a one-third stake in the company’s Wylfa project and finance its debt. Even then, Hitachi rejected the deal, describing it as incompatible with the company’s “economic rationality”. CGN remains keen to build Bradwell. Success in the strictly regulated British market would bolster CGN’ s standing as it tries to build nuclear stations around the world. But America has warned that CGN is helping China to militarise nuclear technology. The company proposes that Rolls-Royce, a British firm, could provide the control systems for Bradwell. Even then, security worries are unlikely to subside. Sizewell C’s chances look better. In nuclear construction, repetition and standardisation help restrain spending. Sizewell is a replica of Hinkley Point C, so EDF says its costs would be low enough to compete with wind. Sizewell may also be financed under a new mechanism in which the company receives a regulated rate of return. Even then, reckons Dieter Helm of Oxford University, the government would probably need to take a stake in the project to make it viable. “If the British government really wants to do Sizewell,” he argues, “it will have to invest in Sizewell and it will have to make it an Anglo-French project.”

So ministers face a choice. They could pivot away from nuclear power and find a new way to lower emissions. Wind and solar could fill some of the gap, but new natural-gas stations would probably still be needed to offset the loss of nuclear, predicts Peter Osbaldstone of Wood Mackenzie, an energy consultancy. “There would potentially be a large tranche of low-carbon power coming offline and a fossil fuel stepping into its place,” he says.

Alternatively, the government could bolster nuclear power, which would probably require substantial public investment in new power stations. It is unclear that Labour would support that, given the falling cost of renewables. For a successful nuclear industry, says Mr Helm, “you do need a cross-party, deep political consensus.” Right now there is little of that around.