New Nukes, allegedly!

Get well soon Mr Drew.

Sadly for today regular readers will have to put up with my interpretation of events in the world of energy which is somewhat slightly less informed and slightly more strident than our regular poster, Nick Drew.

But the Government is very over-excited today that Horizon, a German vehicle to build nuclear power stations has actually been sold to Hitachi of Japan. They are even paying a £1 billion for the privilege and have signed up Babcocks and Rolls-Royce as partners.

With the UK energy policy in a complete mess, this could be the way out the Government was looking for. What they are not answering though is the really big question - what is the subsidy being bunged at the Japanese?

Now Ed Davey, the rubbish energy minister (he is a sort of living embodiment of a reverse waste to energy process), is happy to tell the ill-informed hacks speaking to him that there is no taxpayer subsidy. Clearly, this is bullshit. What there is to be is an undisclosed massive guarantee around energy pricing which is in effect a tax on all energy users - so that would be everyone then.

Now, Hitachi, desperate as they are given the travails of nuclear in their home market post-Fukushima, are not going to have signed up to this without knowing what their bung is to be. But when will we find out?

The longer we are not told, the worse the news is likely to be. Somehow I doubt the subsidy to shale gas producers would be as big and also the energy would be cheaper, as we can see in the US....