So the French are going to take over power generation in the UK?

A sharp increase in candle purchases due to the threat of strike action is going to result in a heavy tax levy on those C02 spewing candlesticks.

Stock up now, that's my advice.

save taxes further by just giving the bloody country away piece by piece to everyone else. get royal mail run by the italiens, power by france, water by germany, the trains by america and you're sorted, how can you possibly screw up a the country more if it's being run by another country?

EDF doing nuclear in the UK?

Unbelievable - and downright frightening, seeing I live only about 30 miles - as the fallout blows - from a soon to be decommissioned nuclear power-plant site that's penciled in for new development.

Since EDF became the electricity suppler - in charge of actually managing the delivery of electricity 'to the door' (I don't mean the outfit we pay bills to) - the level of power outages in the area has increased tenfold, and is getting steadily worse.

Equipment failures are now so frequent it's apparent they are overloading the local distribution network, failing to invest in new plant, and failing to maintain what they have.

In this area we now have a reliability of electricity supply that would shame many third world countries.

And this bunch are seriously going into nuclear generation in the UK?

Is it just me, or is finding yet another good reason to get the hell out of the UK becoming a daily occurrence?

EDF have simply decided that there is a future in vegetables that glow in the dark?

"EDF doing nuclear in the UK? Unbelievable - and downright frightening"

Hardly. EDF generates 70% of France's electricity from nuclear, and has never had a major disaster. If they buy British Energy it'll be a Bloody Good Thing - at least it means there's a chance we'll actually *build* some nuclear plants before the lights go out...

At the time of the CEGB the uk was a major player in the nuclear electricity gen field.

Now reduced to selling it off to foreign companies and importing foreign know-how,

It's quite pitiful.

Hope they get them up and running before the EU carbon emissons reg come in in 2015 and all the coal fired stations have to be closed.

The death of Britain.

Do you pronounce 'nuclear' as 'nucular' as well?

Right, the place a train stops is a "railway station", the opening hatch at the rear of a car is the "boot", at the front is a "bonnet" and the black rubber things on the wheels are the "tyres". The fat man who allegedly travels by sleigh at christmas is "Father Christmas".

All our energy requirements are being put in the hands of over seas companies.

During the last price rises suprise suprise we got our rates hiked by double the rate they passed on to consumers in their own countries.The government don't care because they get a larger cut of the higher prices.

A nuclear power plant is a reasonably easy beast to manage and run.My worry is these firms will up and off after the plant has run its course and leave us to foot the bill.If we are going to have privately run nuclear plants a ring fenced bond for decommissioning should be taken over the lifetime of the plant.

My bigger worry is the sellling off to an american led consortium of the plants that will provide the fuel ,waste disposal, and reprocessing of the fuel from these new power stations and i suspect from other plants worldwide.

Why is the government continually selling off business's that have long term strategic importance to our ability to produce energy.

10 years of inactivity have left us in a perilous state for our energy requirements we should perhaps stock up on candles and lamp oil we are going to need them.

I'm sure you all see it...

The government has realised that there has been two major mistakes in the last 50 years.

Joining Europe and privatising most of the UK - and it plans to kill both of these with a single cunning solution!!

First you get foreign companies to buy up all the uk utilities and then pass legal requirements for them to invest in them,

Then at a later date you announce our withdrawal from the EU AND the renationalisation of all those services.

Since the "shareholders" then losing out will all be from other countries they can be told this was all done for security reasons and the uk government will allow them no legal recourse.

What could possibly go wrong?

So he sold our gold reserves at a 50% discount of the price today and now he is going to sell our only cheap energy generating source to another country for less than market value.

I thought Scots were supposed to be tight?

Oh and aren't EDF 70% owned by the French Government? How come they manage to actually increase shareholder value in the things they have a stake in and our muppets sell us on the cheap?

does anyone else see where this is going?

EDF build a bunch of power stations here, supply the power to France, shut down the French stations and charge us double the price the French pay.

Just watch and remember you heard it here first.

As Bart Simpson would say "twice the pet, none of the mess"

Ahh.

I would normally be horrified at this news; more nuclear stations bad, lack of renewables investment bad and all that, not to mention the terrifying idea of a non-governmental company running a nuclear power station, maybe even building new ones.

Atomic power is something that a government should be doing, a government that's at least sometimes accountable to the (glowing) masses when things go wrong (at least, the glowing masses that survive, that is).

But I'm not. Because there isn't a hope in hell these things are getting built in Scotland, and since we are a net energy provider, we don't really need new power stations anyway, just slowly replace the fossil-fuelled ones with more wind-farms, hydro-plants and maybe a tidal station or two when the tech matures.

And pretty soon we'll have complete independence from you lot with your french nuke stations, and your lowest-bidder-provided safety equipment.

To show no hard feelings though, we'll probably send down aid-workers and food-bundles when one goes kablooie.

You'll have to buy the water though, since we have tons and you run out every year watering your marigolds.

That the Scottish government has expressly forbidden the building of new nuclear plants on health & safety grounds: planning was part of their devolution settlement, apparently.

Which is quite sensible, given that they're sitting one of the biggest renewable energy resources in Europe.

As a Scot living doon sooth, I find your attitude appalingly short sighted.

tell me, other than North Sea oil [by definition a finite resource] what is the scottish economic and energy platform? Tourism and ginger "See yee Jimmy" caps?

Because no bugger up there is going to swallow their pride and build wind farms in 'unspoilt Scotland', and wave energy farms - well, what a roaring success they have been, eh?

Honestly, I'm glad I got out of Scotland when I did, it seems that everyone's IQ has dropped by a good thirty points in the last five years....

Steven R

Proud Scot.

Not proud of Scotland.

I agree fossil fuels are indeed a limited resource; if we have to use them then we should at least see the tax revenues from them in Scotland, not being sucked up by the English to spend on Dome's and Olympics and other assorted foolings.

Moreover, I think you should have some more knowledge, and more pride in your home country;

Scotland is a world exporter in whisky, it's not just Scotland's, but also the UK's biggest export. It's one of Scotland's most important industries. It's been stifled by overtaxing by the English. Funny, since the English don't really make any spirits, yet love all the tax revenues the Scottish whisky companies contribute.

Not only does Scotland export whisky though, we also export many other things, including a much larger share of the UK engineering and manufacturing industry per-head than England. Something else we export is water and energy.

The English depend on Scottish water. When was the last time you heard of Scotland having a hosepipe ban?

Ditto on the energy thing. Scotland already accounts for a large share of the renewables produced in Europe. Scotland has, probably, the best renewables prospects in Europe what with the potential for offshore wind, tide, wave etc.

Actually it's all doing rather well. Would be better without English "help", but that's the story with a lot of things in Scotland.

But, feel free to continue in your merry london-party voting "we cannae dae it" ways. Since you'll no doubt do a faster u-turn on this than Bendy Wendy would come independence and the massive upturn in growth, jobs, the economy and pride that Scotland will have, I'll be seeing you in, ooh, maybe 5 years.

Saying that, apparently Wendy Alexander is "secure absolutely" her position.

Better make that 3 years then. She's like a walking billboard for why we don't need her kind, the interference from London, nor any of the "we cannae dae it" crowd any longer. If London's so damned brilliant, maybe you should consider staying there.

So how long is it going to be before someone comments that EDF's PR bloke is none other than a Mr Andrew Broon, younger brother of the Rt Hon Gordon Broon MP?

Nothing like keeping it in the family, says a random Austrian.

1. Building wind turbines on land is so passé, so Nineties. The Danes put them out to sea, where there's greater exposure (and more power). The extra cost in construction is more than adequately compensated for.

2. The Scots are directly exposed to most of the North Atlantic, which the Danes are not. (Ever wondered why it's so windy in Scotland?)

3. Wave power is one thing, tidal power is another. Scotland, like Norway, has tidal currents zipping between it's islands and penisulas faster than a man can run -- well, me at any rate. As an example, the Pentland Firth just south of the Orkneys has peak tides of 8-9 knots, sustained 4 times a day, every day. Scotland is also home to one of the largest tidal whirlpools in the world, the Corryvreckan. That puts it up there, in tidal terms, alongside the Canadians and their Bay of Fundy.

4. Government interest. There have been many, many government (both British and Scottish) commissioned reports on the matter. Tidal power alone, neglecting wind and wave, could supply the Scots with 270 TWhr/year (see Bryden, 2004). You'd have to build 20-30 nuclear plants to match that. Why have the British done nothing about it though? Inertia, or more pressing matters: wars in Iraq, maybe?

Call it professional bias, but I do have to wonder why, with this vast supply of inexhaustible energy sitting on their doorstep, neither the Scots or Brits have done much about it. The oil will not last forever, but thankfully neither will Gordon Brown.

But is this Salmond fellow any better?

Meh, I'm just bitter - I never did fit in up north ;-)

Good comeback though - you don't here arguments like that down here, funnily enough. Hence the thumbs up.

*goes off to meander through Scotlands economic output*

Anyway, EDF making nuke plants in the UK [just to get back on topic] - well, someone has to, and UK.Gov is too fucking scared to be attached to it...

Steven "I'm half german anyway so I don't care" Raith ;-)

"But then, this is a country that hasn't seen fit to preserve Calder Hall as part of our industrial legacy."

Oh, I'm sure Calder Hall will be part of the nation's "legacy" for some considerable time to come.