Evidence submitted to the House of Lords Economic Affairs Select Committee investigation into energy policy

          Evidence I submitted to the House of Lords Economic Affairs Select Committee investigation into energy policy   In justifying its decision to go ahead with Hinkley the Government has emphasised the fact that EDF will bear its construction risk. This is true, albeit with some […]

HINKLEY DECISION GRINDS TO A HALT

      On Thursday 21st July the Prime Minister dined with Francois Hollande in Paris. On the same day, EDF announced a meeting of its Board had been called for the 28th of July. A press release stated simply that the new nuclear power station at Hinkley Point would […]

Hinkley is a big economic problem – Sky News

    The National Infrastructure Commission just pointed out a while ago that with better use of our existing energy generation capacity we could avoid four Hinkleys, and save 8 billion pounds. McKinsey pointed out that if we just took forward the energy efficiency that we are already doing we […]

Hinkley Point – BBC Radio 4 – Today Program

      There is no doubt that we need electricity, we just don’t need the electricity from Hinkley at enormous cost. It’s very unreliable, we are not sure that this type of reactor will actually work. There are much better ways of achieving the security of supply we need […]

Hinkley Point C nuclear deal contains £22bn ‘poison pill’ for taxpayer

  ‘If the SoSIA is signed it will change the argument over Hinkley. Instead of being an argument about why we should kill this white elephant – which the government has comprehensively lost –  it will become an argument about not being able to afford the bullets to kill the […]

Conservative government facing heavy criticism for cutting green subsidies and investment – Sky News – 13 Dec 15

      Sky News: The government’s energy policy has come under fire and has been described as illegal, just a day after world leaders agreed a historic plan to tackle climate change. David Cameron was among many who praised the deal made in Paris as a huge step forward in […]

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 […]

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 […]

SQUARING THE CIRCLES

  This piece was first published by the Energy and Carbon Blog     Amber Rudd’s appointment as Secretary of State for Energy and Climate has been welcomed by environmentalists. This is partly out of relief. There was a real risk that DECC would be abolished by an incoming Conservative Government. […]

STANDING OUR GROUND

  This piece was first published by Friends Of The Earth here       On a very cold morning forty years ago I got into a bright red Mini outside the FoE offices in Poland Street. Together with John Price, an Australian physics PhD, I was about to set […]