Bizarre Nuclear Whine from the Times (UK)
Sep. 25th, 2008 10:11 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
webfarmerI'm not sure why I'm posting this. Out of perverseness I suppose. All these conservatives pining over the massively socialized entities like the 90% state owned Areva and the 80% state owned EdF is just amazing. Seems to me more like a voluntary reverse "cash for trash" trade in the case of the sale of British Energy to EdF. Good on Labour for dumping it on the French.
A Sad and Bizarre End to Britain's Nuclear Adventure - The Globe and Mail - 25 Sep 08
"President Nicolas Sarkozy has carefully nurtured a national energy strategy that has brought into being nuclear, gas and oil champions with Total and Gaz de France-Suez upholding the hydrocarbon chain while EDF and Areva support nuclear ventures. There is a further plan to boost Areva by merging the company with Alstom, the turbine manufacturer and incorporating Bouygues, a major building contractor, as a shareholder.
There is no such expertise left in Britain. Instead the British Treasury viewed the sale of British Energy as a quick route to some ready cash, so feeble is the U.K. balance sheet since the nationalization of Northern Rock, the failed lender. Late in the game, Centrica threw its hat in the ring, arguing that it would be better to rebuild the nuclear fleet under a British flag with more than one reactor design rather than mortgage the future to a single Gallic spec.
Centrica got short shrift; it is a financially weaker company and its objective, to secure a supply of power for its distribution business, was plain. It had no nuclear expertise but it has secured a consolation prize with a quarter share of British Energy and the promise of a contract for 25 per cent of British Energy's future output.
No one in the world runs their energy economy quite like the British and it's not hard to see why."
A Sad and Bizarre End to Britain's Nuclear Adventure - The Globe and Mail - 25 Sep 08
"President Nicolas Sarkozy has carefully nurtured a national energy strategy that has brought into being nuclear, gas and oil champions with Total and Gaz de France-Suez upholding the hydrocarbon chain while EDF and Areva support nuclear ventures. There is a further plan to boost Areva by merging the company with Alstom, the turbine manufacturer and incorporating Bouygues, a major building contractor, as a shareholder.
There is no such expertise left in Britain. Instead the British Treasury viewed the sale of British Energy as a quick route to some ready cash, so feeble is the U.K. balance sheet since the nationalization of Northern Rock, the failed lender. Late in the game, Centrica threw its hat in the ring, arguing that it would be better to rebuild the nuclear fleet under a British flag with more than one reactor design rather than mortgage the future to a single Gallic spec.
Centrica got short shrift; it is a financially weaker company and its objective, to secure a supply of power for its distribution business, was plain. It had no nuclear expertise but it has secured a consolation prize with a quarter share of British Energy and the promise of a contract for 25 per cent of British Energy's future output.
No one in the world runs their energy economy quite like the British and it's not hard to see why."
