While on the subject of private utilities:


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17344263

And, of course, the French are widely signed up to bits of the EU that Cameron stuck his fingers up to, are in the Eurozone, etc. etc..

Anyway, nothing like scaring a Eurosceptic by mentioning The French.

Who are always opposed to nuclear power. So I'll take their political assessment with a pinch of salt.

What do they mean by 'in danger of'? EDF already owns British Energy who ran all the remaining working reactors in the country.
It's a bit bleedin' late to worry about the countries infrastructure being owned by other countries. That's already happened.

Erm... the French have a very sensible energy policy and we have a dumb one.

I want the French in charge.

You're doing it again

We've got to stop agreeing like this.

Yeah. Get a room.

Energy from UK New Nuclear plant ludicrously expensive

As part of the deal that got the Chinese to pay the French to build us a new nuclear power plant, the current government signed up to a contract that gave investors a guaranteed price for the energy that comes from it. That price is £92.50 per MWh of electricity. The company that runs Grangemouth has gone on the open market and bought it's power from the French (who haven't faffed about the last 30 years and have lots of nuclear power generation) at a cost of £37.94 per MWh. That isn't even the cheapest power that is available on the open market.

I suspect in the time it takes to build the plant, the price of electricity generation will increase. I find it very hard to believe it will have risen by over 200%.

So that's Royal Mail sold off for half what it is worth, and a guaranteed price paid - for 35 years mind you - for electricity that is three times what it is worth. But, you will find, the current government will tell you they are the only party who understands how business works and the only party that its safe to leave the economy in the hands of. If you believe that one, I have some bottled electricity I I'd like you to buy...

I think that the deal is so bad that it will cost us even if there is no demand for the electricity at that price.

As far as I know - although I haven't seen the contract personally obviously - the contract stipulates a guaranteed return on the power generated. That means if nobody else wants to buy it, the UK government pays them £92.50/MWh for it. And then, I assume, has to sell it on on the open market for a massive loss.

This deal is going to make PPI look like a gift.

No power generation is economically viable without subsidy except coal and gas. The level of subsidy required is variable. If you don't account for those variables before launching a party political rant you run the risk of looking foolish.

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Tja, successive governments abandon manufacturing in the UK, driving it abroad and people are now surprised when things have to be outsourced to other countries?

American power is cheap because of shale gas. French power is not cheap, it is simply subsidised in a different way that means the French people pay a lot of money for all the power they export. Say thank you to the French tax payer for that.

The cost of building a new nuclear power station today is very, very high. This is a good thing, it is because of new safety features such as passive shutdown which make situations like that recently experienced in Japan impossible. However it also means that we have a very limited supply of reactor designs to choose from. There is the Toshiba Westinghouse option, and there is the French design. Elsewhere in the world, nobody is buying French reactors, they are being destroyed in the marketplace by the South Koreans. In Europe, last I knew, nobody could buy anything but French designs.

If carbon pricing ever becomes a reality, the price of our lovely new French reactors will start to look a lot better. If not, it will continue to suck in comparison to gas, which is inherently cheap. In either case, the feeling that you have been ripped off is due to your persistent refusal to accept that there is a context that must be taken into account.