Today, once again, tidal power did not feature in the British government’s spring statement.

It didn’t come up last year, in neither the spring nor the autumn Budgets (though its likely subsidy scheme was put on pause).

It has now been more than a year since former Tory MP Charles Hendry delivered his government-backed review of tidal power, and urged the government to “seize the opportunity to move this technology forward now.”

The review – which cost a cool £156,000 of taxpayer cash – appears to have been left in a drawer somewhere in the Treasury. Hendry has not been heeded and tidal power has not happened.

What once appeared to be ministerial dithering – tidal lagoons were, after all, a key part of David Cameron’s National Infrastructure Plan – is looking more and more like a conscious decision not to progress with the first-of-its-kind Swansea Bay project, which could power 120,000 homes a year and make the UK the ‘world leader in a new global industry’.

That’s (presumably) because it’s really quite expensive, though it likely would bring down costs for future, bigger lagoons.

Just before the statement, during an oral questions session in parliament, BEIS secretary Greg Clark remarked that the project would be twice as expensive as Hinkley (which is a bit of an exaggeration) but said government “won’t close the door” on tidal.

Tidal Lagoon Power told Unearthed that Clark’s claim “looks back, not forwards” and said one possible outcome from the proposed Welsh Government investment is for the project to “get away at the same price and duration as Hinkley but almost 70 times lower cost on bills.”