Rum Ration
the Navy Network

Originally Posted by chieftiff

Hollande's primary policy is to encourage construction by investing in and developing infrastructure, therefore creating jobs and encouraging inward investment which is actually a sensible policy and our current govt should be asking themselves just why they haven't pushed similar policies. The real question is does that policy extend to developing infrastructure in the UK, if not you can say goodbye to the lights in a few years, now that the Horizon partnership (E-ON and RWE) have decided to pull out of nuclear power generation in the UK that only really leaves EDF and EDF is 85% owned and controlled by the French people, as is Areva the reactor designer - will a socialist govt want to invest a very significant amount in the UK, in an industry that carries no govt subsidy whilst in competition with one that carries a subsidy in the region of 80%! I wonder how many of those 3000 jobs at Hinkley C will ever be created and how the government intend to solve our impending power generation defecit?

Who would have though a French election would be so significant to the future of the UK?

Erm - High Speed Rail Link and London airport schemes (all criticised up the ying yang and clearly tough nuts to crack) but also most definiteloy proposed by the new govt immediately spring to mind as good solid infrastructure projects that will have a big employment figure attached to them.

Just rushing off so no time for a more considered response so this may be akin to plunging my hand into a vipers nest

Originally Posted by broadside

Erm - High Speed Rail Link and London airport schemes (all criticised up the ying yang and clearly tough nuts to crack) but also most definiteloy proposed by the new govt immediately spring to mind as good solid infrastructure projects that will have a big employment figure attached to them.

Just rushing off so no time for a more considered response so this may be akin to plunging my hand into a vipers nest

Not at all, this is my industry so I am more than aware of what the govt has and hasn't done, Crossrail is a good example of where they have actually invested significantly in infrastructure..................... or was that the last government who then left them with little choice? Never mind, the fact is they have seen it through and tunnelling will start any day (it may have actually started last week as planned?), only last week I was at a brief by one of the Directors of Crossrail and the project is truly a stunning mega project (over £16bn) and the technology and scale are astounding. What the govt seem incapable of doing is actually creating policies that encourage investment in national infrastructure, there is no real strategy they seem to fall to the whim of whatever minister has been successfully lobbied this month or last. HS2 is still pie in the sky and of dubious value in real terms and London airport - don't make me chuckle.

With the debate over France and their very kind practice (!) of supplying nuclear power to the UK, one does wonder how the High Speed Train project to link Birmingham to Europe will actually work. All railways operating at these speeds on a regular basis use electric traction - source.
If we lose the nuclear generating plants, how will the UK power these trains?

Originally Posted by flymo

With the debate over France and their very kind practice (!) of supplying nuclear power to the UK, one does wonder how the High Speed Train project to link Birmingham to Europe will actually work. All railways operating at these speeds on a regular basis use electric traction - source.
If we lose the nuclear generating plants, how will the UK power these trains?

Iran seem to have the technology to build nuclear power plants, I'm certain they'd build a couple here for free if they can reprocess the spent uranium.... Just a thought

Originally Posted by flymo

With the debate over France and their very kind practice (!) of supplying nuclear power to the UK, one does wonder how the High Speed Train project to link Birmingham to Europe will actually work. All railways operating at these speeds on a regular basis use electric traction - source.
If we lose the nuclear generating plants, how will the UK power these trains?

Well it seems likely that Rosatom will put in a bid to takeover where Horizon left off which is just a tad worrying (do we really want the Russian state to be controlling power generation in the UK, isn't that worse than the French state?) there is also an expected increase in coal gasification (as carbon capture takes off mainstream) and certainly all other types of gas (which is becoming cheaper and cheaper due to fracking technology becoming more widespread and forcing the price of worldwide gas down) None of this is of course certain because our government have no documented coherent strategy to deal with the projected power defecit, just a bunch of incoherent and disjointed 'policies' mostly configured around a low CO2 agenda and reduction targets which must be met by 2020. (I'm not opposed to the targets)

The last government were crap at this stuff and failed to seriously address it in any practical way (they found it hard to even recognise the problem despite all the clear facts presented to them - a power defect of 12 GW by 2023 despite the construction of 3 new gas powered stations!) the parties forming this government were rightly critical of them but as far as I can see have yet to seriously address it themselves. The two parties hold different ideological views on the issue so seem to have just put it on the back burner, and the clock ticks on and on towards 2023 when only one of our reactors won't have begun decommissioning.

Originally Posted by trelawney126

Iran seem to have the technology to build nuclear power plants, I'm certain they'd build a couple here for free if they can reprocess the spent uranium.... Just a thought

Ooh, you stinker LOL

Why didn't Iran choose Thorium instead of Uranium? As Thorium cannot create Plutonium the Wests concerns over nuclear weapons would have become null and void.

Sarkozy deserved to be beaten after his sickening attempts to suck up to the FN and I wholeheartedly agree with chieftiff about investing in infrastructure and jobs in fact I have said so myself on another hot topic, it's the only way to get us out of this crisis.

Not really wishing to digress from the informative postsby Chief Tiff etc, the renewables seem to be a waste of time. I travelled from halfway up France to Calais last Tuesday. During the drive we must have passed over 600 wind turbines, not one was turning. So much for renewables