How much longer can the Government continue to ignore the certain calamity of nuclear costs?
The Weightman report will not consider costs. All they will say is that the UK is unlikely to have a Japanese strength earthquake or tsunami. We all know that.
Weightman is a stunt aimed to shore up collapsing investor confidence. That took a blow today with a plea to Centrica to pull their planned investment in new nukes. There are two new stations being built now. Both are basket cases. Olkiluoto reactor in Finland, whose original start-up date was May 2009, is now at least three-and-a-half years late, and more than 50% over budget. The French new nuke at Flamanville, in north-western France, is now expected to open in 2016 and cost €6bn (£5.2bn) instead of the original starting date of 2012 and a cost of €3.3bn.
As a result of Fukushima, most commentators believe that the engineering and financial costs associated with nuclear power will increase further. The chance of Fukushima going wrong was one in a million. The same odds for Chernobyl and Three Mile Island.
At a recent House of Commons seminar a Japanese expert said that only 19 of Japan’s 54 reactors are now generating. By early 2012, he expected that all would be closed. Nuclear power supplied 30% of Japan’s electricity. It’s nuclear that threatens to put the lights out there.
Centrica is being urged by the City to withdraw from a £4bn commitment to build new nuclear power stations in partnership with Electricité de France (EDF) amid soaring costs and delays. Have the Government forgotten the lesson that no nuclear power station has ever been built anywhere on cost or on time. Yet they stagger blindly on believing in their fictitious costs and start-up dates. If they continue and another nuclear disaster happens anywhere else in the world, public opinion will force the end of nuclear generation.
Meanwhile costs of low-carbon renewables fall. Wind, wave and tide are clean, sustainable, British and inexhaustible. Why is the truth invisible to Government?
Commons Knowledge Two
A recess task is to re-write my most successful book Commons Knowledge 'How to be a Backbencher'. Parliament is a very different place to 1997 when I wrote the first edition. In the post expenses scandal and the post-Bercow era a new set of fascinating tales are emerging.
Anyone have any ideas of new tales of the riverbanks that I can use to enliven the new volume? Any suggestions that make the book will be gratefully acknowledged. A few I cannot ignore are these:
"Rory Stewart, once best known as an Eton-educated former soldier and deputy governor of an Iraqi province, hit the headlines after describing residents in his Penrith and the Border constituency as "people holding up their trousers with bits of twine". The Conservative MP later said he was sorry and "very sad" about the episode. In July, Tory MP Mark Reckless apologised after a drinking session on the Commons terrace while waiting for a 2am vote. Mr Reckless explained at the time: "I normally have just one or two and know when to stop. I don't know what happened. I don't remember falling over." Attempts at humour can backfire. Nadhim Zahawi (Con, Stratford on Avon) was reprimanded for setting off a musical tie during a debate. And Claire Perry (Con, Devizes) apologised to John Bercow, the Commons Speaker, after being caught grumbling to colleagues about not being called in a debate. She is reported to have said: "What have I got to do to be called by the Speaker? Give him a blow job?" She later explained to her local paper: "I am a relatively new MP and I am still learning the ropes."
Even the Telegraph is now giving EDF a kicking on nuclear costs, and worker safety at Flamanville:
"EDF's reputation faces risk of meltdown
... Lakis Athanasiou, of Evolution Securities, estimates that each will cost around £5.5bn. He recommends that EDF's partner Centrica, which owns 20pc of the UK projects, should not proceed because the risk of spiraling costs is too extreme."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/8658298/EDFs-reputation-faces-risk-of-meltdown.html
Posted by: rwendland | July 28, 2011 at 12:42 PM