Comments on: The Market Will Provide http://www.sticksandcarrots.net/2008/01/10/the-market-will-provide/ Not about wood or vegetables Tue, 07 Oct 2008 10:32:22 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.3 By: neil craig http://www.sticksandcarrots.net/2008/01/10/the-market-will-provide/#comment-2579 neil craig Mon, 11 Feb 2008 13:30:51 +0000 http://www.sticksandcarrots.net/2008/01/10/the-market-will-provide/#comment-2579 Brian Wilson also part owns a windmill company so if he is biased it need not be in the direction you suggest. A gentleman with fingers in many pies. I think it is not credible to suggest that anybody would be investing in new nuclear back when the government was describing nuclear as an "unattractive option" ie up to last year. Whatever the formal position does anybody really think a reactor would have ever been built when the government opposed it. Any company willing to lay out billions on that theory is unlikely to be solvent. French nuclear is being produced at 1.3p a unit, half what our cheapest conventional power (coal) costs. It may well be that our regulatory system will drive that up to match coal but it would require real talent to double it again to match wind. Nuclear does not need any sort of subsidy. What it needs is a level playing field & reason to believe the government will not destroy/steal by regulatory fiat the industry after it has been built, as they did previously. We can have cheap plentiful inexhaustible power or we can have blackouts. It is a free choice & until now we have gone for the latter. Brian Wilson also part owns a windmill company so if he is biased it need not be in the direction you suggest. A gentleman with fingers in many pies.

I think it is not credible to suggest that anybody would be investing in new nuclear back when the government was describing nuclear as an “unattractive option” ie up to last year. Whatever the formal position does anybody really think a reactor would have ever been built when the government opposed it. Any company willing to lay out billions on that theory is unlikely to be solvent.

French nuclear is being produced at 1.3p a unit, half what our cheapest conventional power (coal) costs. It may well be that our regulatory system will drive that up to match coal but it would require real talent to double it again to match wind.

Nuclear does not need any sort of subsidy. What it needs is a level playing field & reason to believe the government will not destroy/steal by regulatory fiat the industry after it has been built, as they did previously. We can have cheap plentiful inexhaustible power or we can have blackouts. It is a free choice & until now we have gone for the latter.

]]> By: Stuart http://www.sticksandcarrots.net/2008/01/10/the-market-will-provide/#comment-2132 Stuart Fri, 11 Jan 2008 08:21:16 +0000 http://www.sticksandcarrots.net/2008/01/10/the-market-will-provide/#comment-2132 Not to disagree with the fact that energy companies - hell, any company - would love the government to provide a guarantee for the (minimum) price and demand for the service they provide. But planning applications are very much a non-trivial matter - they can drag on for years and cost millions of pounds. Streamlining them would certainly make building nuclear power plants more attractive. Whether it would make them attractive _enough_, of course, is another question - but it's one that I don't have the answer to. Do you? As to the whole 'interfering in the market' business - the government is quite happy to provide subsidies for non-CO2 generating schemes. Why should nuclear be any different? Not to disagree with the fact that energy companies - hell, any company - would love the government to provide a guarantee for the (minimum) price and demand for the service they provide. But planning applications are very much a non-trivial matter - they can drag on for years and cost millions of pounds. Streamlining them would certainly make building nuclear power plants more attractive. Whether it would make them attractive _enough_, of course, is another question - but it’s one that I don’t have the answer to. Do you?

As to the whole ‘interfering in the market’ business - the government is quite happy to provide subsidies for non-CO2 generating schemes. Why should nuclear be any different?

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