Is there really a need for Hinkley Point to be built? – World at One – Radio 4 – 16 Feb 16

    BBC: So Is there a really need for Hinkley Point to be built? Tom Burke: There isn’t actually, there’s lots and lots more things that we can do. There is no need to replace nuclear with nuclear, or indeed with gas. We’ve got so many more options, that […]

Even if the global warming scare were a hoax, we would still need it – The Telegraph

  This article was first published in The Telegraph   China is the low-carbon superpower and will be the ultimate enforcer of the COP21 climate deal in Paris     By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard   Chinese scientists have published two alarming reports in a matter of weeks. Both conclude that the […]

Why Hinkley is a very bad deal for Britain – BBC News

    Here at Hinkley Point alongside existing reactors is where George Osborne wants to build a new nuclear power station in Britain. It will be built by EDF, a French state owned electricity company, and will cost 24 and a half billion pounds, that’s more than Crossrail and the […]

Nuclear Cost – Letter to The Times, October 19 2015

                  The Times, letters, October 19 2015 To slash and burn renewable investment for the sake of costly support for new nuclear plants is unwise Sir, George Osborne assumes that energy demand will increase (“Nuclear deal with China is threat to UK […]

WHAT’S IN A WORD 3

        John Hutton is Chairman of the Nuclear Industries Association. On August 24th he told the Radio 4 Today audience that  “The nuclear programme is going to be built without any state funding at all”. Sitting next to him in the studio I nearly fell off my […]

APRES MOI LE DELUGE

                    Louis XV’s mordant phrase aptly captures the legacy of the Coalition government’s electricity policy. The new government, whatever its composition, will inherit a policy that achieved a rare feat. It united investors, generators, customers, commentators and environmentalists on energy policy. […]

WHOM THE GODS DESTROY

      Despite frequent headlines suggesting otherwise, EDF has not yet agreed to buy two nuclear reactors from its sister French state-owned company Areva. The British Government has yet to sign a contract to purchase the electricity the reactors will produce. Without that contract EDF will not make the […]

THE POWER OF DREAMS

    This piece first appeared in The Guardian on Thursday 10th July                 It has always been difficult to see what was attractive about the proposed deal with EDF to build a nuclear reactor at Hinkley Point in Somerset. To bring this […]

CHINA NIGHTMARE

  This piece first appeared in Business Green                   The prospect of the Chinese becoming owners, managers and even constructors of nuclear power stations in Britain has caused anxiety in some unexpected places. Both the right and the left, united in their […]

It can’t be easy being George Monbiot

  By Jonathon Porritt  5th December 2013   This article first appeared in Jonathon Porritt’s blog and in The Ecologist The Letter referred to in this article is the one that Jonathon Porritt, Tony Juniper, Charles Secrett and I wrote to David Cameron, highlighting the key economic and political issues with pursuing a pro-nuclear […]