Quote:
Originally Posted by 1andrew1
It's the increase in the cost of gas post the invasion of Ukraine that has driven up bills.
|
It’s a strategic decision in the late 1980s to make us reliant on gas for electricity generation that’s driven up bills.
We led the world in nuclear power but by the beginning of the 1990s we were allowing crusties, fruit loops and other assorted eco-loons to set the terms of the debate and make it impossible to plan to build new power stations.
We knew gas was a fossil fuel in the 1980s. We knew it was a finite resource. As a transitory measure to get us off coal, which is also a finite fossil fuel but also incredibly dirty, gas was fine. But as a substitute for clean nuclear energy at which we were a world leader, it was a poor choice.
In order to get back on track we have been forced to pay top dollar to the French state generator, EDF, France not having made the same stupid decisions we did and now being a world leader in nuclear energy. And meanwhile, we have continued to dither over the one area of nuclear tech we do still lead - small reactors, which are installed in every RN submarine, and which can be scaled to provide a large number of small nuclear power stations that can be built quickly and cheaply, certainly in comparison to the behemoth being constructed at Hinckley Point at a cost of £47 billion (and still not ready after 8 years … it probably won’t contribute to the Grid for another 5).