Ed Miliband is set to commit more than £14 billion of public money to a nuclear power renaissance in a bid to avert blackouts as Net Zero approaches. The Telegraph has more.
The Energy Secretary will on Tuesday commit £14.2 billion to building two giant reactors at Sizewell, Suffolk, capable of providing six million homes with electricity regardless of low winds and dark winter days.
The heavy investment comes as fears rise that Mr Miliband’s rush to build wind and solar farms is leaving the grid too exposed to the weather and vulnerable to outages.
Over-reliance on intermittent renewables could even threaten blackouts of the kind that hit Spain in April, say experts.
Nuclear generation is a reliable source of so-called baseload power, the minimum amount of demand on the grid.
Writing in Telegraph, Mr Miliband said the announcement marked a new “golden age” for the British nuclear industry.
He said: “This challenge of energy security and the demands of the climate crisis mean that it is in our interests to shift as fast as possible to clean, home-grown power.
“The demand for that power is expected to at least double by 2050. That’s why we need all the clean, home-grown sources that we can to meet the demands we face. New nuclear is a crucial source of firm, baseload power.”
In the Spectator, Ross Clark looks at the expected timeframes for this boost to nuclear power and concludes it isn’t going to save Ed Miliband.
But nothing that Miliband has unveiled does anything to help the Energy and Climate Secretary achieve his ambition to decarbonise the electricity supply by 2030 – or ease the coming crunch as he tries to reach that target. It has already been 15 years since the government approved plans for a new nuclear plant at Hinkley C – which developers EDF promised would be ready to cook our Christmas turkeys by 2017. The earliest it will now open is 2029, by which time it will have cost at least £46 billion.
Hinkley C is proposed to use the same design, which has proved difficult and costly to build in France and Finland, too. Why Miliband should think it will be any different this time around is hard to tell. To judge by past experience, it will be the 2040s before Sizewell C is cooking our turkeys. The only change in Sizewell C’s case is that the UK taxpayer will be bearing far more of the construction costs. In Hinkley C’s case, EDF is supposed to be bearing all the risk; with Sizewell C, that has been mostly transferred to the taxpayer.
Nor are SMRs going to save Miliband. There is logic in reducing the scale of nuclear reactors so that they can be built on a production line rather than by bespoke design on-site. It is good that Rolls Royce has won the competition for government cash to develop its SMR design, £2.5 billion funding for which has also been announced today. Nevertheless, there is hardly anyone who believes that SMRs will be up and running before 2035. There is also no guarantee they will prove cheaper than existing large nuclear plants.
Both the Telegraph report and Ross’s Spectator article are worth reading in full.
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What a buggered up country.
Fucking meddlers. Just. Leave. People. Alone…
especially those kids.
the new Public Health empire has massive power and unlimited profit potential – the only downside is it is very dangerous to actual public health
bring back hanging
and there’s more
Mystery of the ‘magnetic vaccines’ By Sally Beck
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/mystery-of-the-magnetic-vaccines/
Stand in South Hill Park Bracknell every Sunday from 10am meet fellow anti lockdown freedom lovers, keep yourself sane, make new friends and have a laugh.
Join our Stand in the Park – Bracknell – Telegram Group
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Home Schooling – Ex-Primary School Teacher on Resistance GB YouTube Channel:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZ5oS2ejye0
https://www.hopesussex.co.uk/our-mission
Pingdemic – yet another variant of lockdown, which will NOT end tomorrow or any other day soon.
Except it might because of the wholesale abandonment of the app and checking in to venues. Although I agree that can’t help with schools.
I don’t think the kids should worry too much. When they grow up their main aspiration in life will be to sit at home spending their Universal Basic Income online.
all of it will end up as economic rent.
i.e. Billionaire welfare state.
Teachers will be loving this. Less to mark over the holidays. Free’s up more time to peacefully protest every 2 weeks when needed by Soros/Khan.
“Teachers will be loving this”
Another dumb and ignorant generalisation, just when intelligence is much needed.
My wife is a teacher. I can assure you teachers are more sick of this than anyone. You’ve no idea what teachers have had to deal with over the pandemic, so stop showing your ignorance – unless you’re happy for everyone to think you a fool
It is not the fault of the “pandemic” Geoff, it is incompetent government policy and useless systems as none of the cabinet has a clue about science, biology or virology.
The country will have ground to halt within three weeks if we carry on like this. Then we will discover what life will be like with no food, power or services. Just like the three day week for those old enough to remember.
It is hard to believe that the Government are so stupid, incompetent and devoid of any logical thought and management ability that they are just wringing their hands in despair and letting this happen? It is hard not to get the feeling that there is something more behind it all? Are Sajid J and Rishi S looking to put Johnson in an impossible position so that they can force him out? Today’s U turn on the test-isolate nonsense indicates that Johnson is now a busted flush blown hither and thither by everybody else, demonstrating no constructive leadership of his own.
But he hasn’t done much constructive since this started. Neither have any of the others. All just theatre. I think it’s going more or less according to plan – ease up in summer, appear magnanimous and freedom-loving, but maintain the main thrust of the Big Lie and the underlying mechanisms like mass testing, some more restrictions in winter, keep the vaxx rollout going.
I agree – nothing but theatre. ‘Freedom Day’ and look at Dear Leader plus the Cabinet having to isolate. We better not celebrate ourselves with that level of sacrifice going on. What do they take us for?
As you say, all just theatre. But it is more than that – it is pure psychology, dangle a carrot, take it away, dangle it again, rinse and repeat ad nauseam.
Why people cannot see this I don’t know, presumably they have never read anything about psychological testing, pressure, suggestions. I am only a humble chartered accountant, but I can read and investigate what is happening to the population. Why is another question to which none of us have a definitive answer at the moment.
Worse – everything they have done has been destructive.
Got it in one,Steve.
Yes I remember the 3 day week I also remember the 1968 Influenza Pandemic too, which is why I think the present generations are over indulged bedwetters with no bottle! Perhaps a few hardships will instil some strength of character, so badly needed.
Ditto, and I also remember the Asian flu of 56/57.
No panic, people just got on with life.
My brother now 69 and my MIL now 96 had it and obviously recovered.
Me too FP. I was in my first term (and last, as it happens) at a state run experimental boarding school in Norfolk set in Nissen Huts, and hundreds of kids went down with it. I remember there was a lot of throwing up involved which made the floors very slippery.
I was 12 at the time of the 1968 flu pandemic. I am sure I just carried on going to school, and my dad went to work. Life carried, people lived and people died. Maybe as it was only 23 years after the end of WW2 people were far more stoical and robust. Bay of Pigs, Cold War, Iron Curtain etc. were more important than a slightly worse than normal seasonal influenza outbreak.
One of my grandfathers served in two world wars so that these overindulged bedwetters can prance around now, unable to make a coherent decision about anything.
I was 19/20 in 68 and I don’t even remember THAT there was a pandemic.
The 3 day week wasn’t as bad as it is now.
It actually seems like blatant hypocrisy on Geoff’s part given how the teaching unions were against schools reopening, and constantly calling for tougher measures such as more mask wearing. It makes me mad that he can now claim to be worried about children after spending the past 18 months trying his hardest to harm them.
It seems the government are hellbent on turning the country into a cross between communist Russia, North Korea and Venezuela.
.. when it’s just simply Tory Britain.
plenty of dandelions… acorns on the way.
Why the hell are we quoting The Grauniad??
Source somewhere that has some form of credentials, not a known Leftist rag.
I know. The barmy right doesn’t need any help in screwing up the country.
No mention of kids (orange juice hack on lateral flow tests) / parents / teachers using COVID as an excuse for a longer holiday (or trying to get somewhere to stay before the inevitable school holiday price hikes and lack of availability). Perhaps I am too cynical …
And to think of the fuss they made over parents taking children out of school for 1 week’s holiday abroad!
No, they reflect the moronic level of testing of people without symptoms – including kids.
In sweden there is no testing of school kids – if a child is unwell he/she are sent home and everyone else gets on with schooling – everything works just fine – our government and scientists are criminally incompetent
“…. with many of their parents phoning in to say they were worried about disruption to holiday and social plans, even though this would constitute an unauthorised absence. …”
Do they seriously think any parent will ever think twice in the future about taking their children out of school whenever they want to. For the past 18 months the government and education service have shown that the education of our children means absolutely diddly squat to them.
That’s unusual – teachers skiving off.
Ee by gum, when I was a lad it was usually the other way round with us the children seeking ways to skive off.
I’ve realised what the plan is. You sabotage education so we have a nation of numpties who believe the government.
We already have that though.
That is exactly what they are doing.
The plans are extensive. What is going on is not ad hoc but being run out to their preordained agenda.
A psychologically crippled generation of school children will make the perfect slave generation.
I don’t think most people appreciate how deep the planning goes.
Once the old buggers are got rid of and the current 12 year olds are gibbering idiots by age 21 (2030 BTW) it will be all over for what we currently consider humanity.
This is the war we are fighting.
These are all policies put into place because the teacher’s unions insisted on them. And – how surprising – the net effect is once more “school closure”.
‘The most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the government and I’m here to help.’ – Ronald Reagan
Might just be me or my kid’s school (an inner London Academy) but when they threatened to test my kid I said NO, when they tried to mask the kid, I said NO, and when I got a call from the woman front of house who told me my kid had to self isolate due to some other kid, I said NO – when the woman murmured something about govt policy I told her what I thought. And Lo and behold nothing was said when the kid continued to attend school and is in fact still there until official breakup later this week. I just wonder if much of this is parents not having the bottle or desire to object?
Mystery of the ‘magnetic vaccines’ By Sally Beck
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/mystery-of-the-magnetic-vaccines/
Stand in South Hill Park Bracknell every Sunday from 10am meet fellow anti lockdown freedom lovers, keep yourself sane, make new friends and have a laugh.
Join our Stand in the Park – Bracknell – Telegram Group
http://t.me/astandintheparkbracknell
Home Schooling – Ex-Primary School Teacher on Resistance GB YouTube Channel:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZ5oS2ejye0
https://www.hopesussex.co.uk/our-mission
It’s called dumbing down. Only 18 months ago you could be fined for keeping your children out of school if a holiday abroad overlapped term time. Now the government can wantonly cancel months of education with no real evidence. Poor old teachers…they work so hard too…NOT!
As someone who taught from 1971-2006 fulltime, part time, supply, in all sorts of secondary schools here and abroad, I am beyond angry at the way a whole generation of children has been abused (there is really no other word for it) by the unions, politicians, so called experts and some teachers. The constant lockdowns, forced isolations and consequent mental disturbances will have permanently damaged hundreds of thousands and left them not just unable to fulfil their true potential but will probably damage their future prospects too. (would you want to employ someone whose educational qualifications have been decided by their own teachers?) It is inhumane to force children, who are less affected by covid than older members of society, to isolate again and again just because one in their “bubble” has tested positive. It is disruptive ,uncaring and shows in what regard thee youngsters are regarded by the aforementioned groups. Catch up? When? How? How much? How many children? It is wrong.