Tuesday 11 March 2014

Nuclear Frog Farce: Enough Already

When do ministers finally lose patience with EDF ?  When do they wake up to the thought that the entire 'new nuclear' programme is a badly misconceived joke?  That the civil service is utterly inadequate for nailing a proper deal with the slippery Frog?  That government time (and monies) expended on pretending otherwise are not only wasted, they are misleading a host of gullible UK would be 'nuclear industry supply-chain' companies into wasting their resources, too.

Yes, for the umpteenth time since 2008 when EDF bought British Energy and 'announced' that it would build four new nukes here, it has announced another delay. That's even with the government's remarkably generous Contract for Differences in hand, which gives them a lavish guaranteed and uncapped return on "the world's most expensive power plant".  A delay blamed on the entirely predictable scathing response from the EC on the mater of whether the CfD + Treasury Guarantee package constitutes illicit state aid (a response which also brilliantly analyses the flaws in UK nuclear policy, and by extension, the whole Energy Act charade).

Nuclear power has a lot of supporters and - at the right price - they have a lot of logic on their side.  But not at any price; and definitely not at the unreliable whim of massively discredited EDF.  Thank the EC for their cogently-argued critique (it really is very fine); scrap the deal right now; and start again.

ND

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