Wind farms: millionaire playgrounds for Green fat cats

ENERGY policy in Great Britain has been a shambles for years. Cowardly governments have turned a blind eye to repeated warnings over prices and supply.

The biggest improvement in nuclear technology in recent years has been the drastic reduction in the volume of waste it produces: if modern plants were commissioned to replace the existing stations, Britain would be able to maintain its 20%-25% share of nuclear-generated power and add only roughly 10% to the UK’s volume of existing nuclear waste over their 60-year operating lifetime. Current levels of electricity output from nuclear power could be maintained by ten 1,000-megawatt nuclear stations based on the latest techniques; 40 would quadruple it and solve virtually all of Britain’s energy problems.

Like all of Gordon Brown’s other grand plans, his decision to take up the nuclear standard, pledging to deliver a new series of power stations to replace the current ones in a decade, is too little, too late. There is much that is wrong about the way France manages and directs its economy; but its huge investment in nuclear power is a model worth following. In fact, many European countries depend more heavily on nuclear power than Britain: in France about 75% of all electricity is nuclear-generated, in Belgium 55%, Finland 27%, Switzerland 40% and Sweden 50%.

Britain should increase its reliance on nuclear power to European levels; failure to do so risks devastating consequences for the British economy and will damage consumers very badly. But most urgent of all, Mr Brown (and Brussels) should stop wasting time and taxpayers’ money with wind farms.