THE LAST DITCH
Link: Major energy policy shake-up in parliament | Top News | Reuters.co.uk.
This is only about 10 years late. Of course the criminalisation of fox-hunting (and about 3,000 other activities) was far more urgent. It is good to see anthropogenic climate change theory serve a useful purpose. It is a wonderful Left-proof smoke-screen for the deplorably un-internationalist goal of achieving energy-independence.
Let’s hope it works. Otherwise, we will be Finland with lots of foxes.
The reason being of course that the attention span of a politician is 3-4 years (the date of the next election) giving sops to your power base is easier than thinking what is good in the long term, as ever party before patria.
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Interestingly Finland is also building new nukes, to try and reduce their dependence of Russian gas. A definlandisation of finland.
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The previous Energy White Paper was only in 2003. Why is this 10 years late?
Still, congratulations on picking this up. Almost none of the right-of-centre blogs have done so. I guess energy isn’t that important. Or the Government have got it bang on. Yeah, right…
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It’s at least 10 years late because – with planning objections (there were 15 years of them for Heathrow Terminal 5) – it may easily take that long to build and commission a new nuclear power station. The first of the existing stations will be decommissioned next year. For its replacement to fire up as it powers down, this process should have started in 1997.
It’s complete incompetence of course, but what can we expect from a Government of local authority lawyers, postmen and college teachers? They don’t know where the money they squander comes from.
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Maybe they didn’t think they would be in power this long, and could get the Tories to take the unpopular decisions.
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Or maybe they didn’t think they should be framing energy policy to enable any particular technology.
The energy companies could have started the planning process to develop new nuclear if they wanted at any time. The only change proposed in the new White Paper is that local opinion will be overridden in the planning process. There is no additional financial assistance. If the problem was length of time to develop, the energy companies, not the Government, should have started the process long ago. There was no prohibition on developing nuclear. If the problem was that they thought they wouldn’t get permission, waiting for the Government to change the planning system to ride roughshod over local opinion is disgraceful behaviour. I would look at big energy, not the Government, if I were you.
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Tom is a retired international lawyer. He was a partner in a City of London law firm and spent almost twenty years abroad serving clients from all over the world.
Returning to London on retirement in 2011, he was dismayed to discover how much liberty had been lost in the UK while he was away.
He’s a classical liberal (libertarian, if you must) who, like his illustrious namesake, considers that
“…government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one.”
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The Last Ditch by Tom Paine 
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