If you didn't see Newsnight last night it is well worth watching online.
Following leaks from yesterday's cabinet meeting, the media is reporting that the government is going to give the green light for new nuclear power stations in a Commons statement tomorrow. The panel stand off that followed the news report ripped holes in the government's rationale for new nuclear power and was perhaps the only news on nuclear I've seen recently that has put a smile on my face.
Bernard Ingham, who is now Secretary for the Supporters of Nuclear Energy but reminds me more of one of the curmudgeonly old men propping up the bar at my local than a formidable spin-doctor, was still spouting Thatcher-era rhetoric. He seems to have missed the fact that one of the primary reasons the government is telling us we need new nukes is to stop climate change. Instead he says we need nuclear power so the lights don't go out.
But as Tom Burke from Imperial College and UCL pointed out, the government's own figures predict the energy gap - when we are expected to be using more energy than we produce - in less than 10 years' time. But 2021 is the most optimistic estimate for when we will see the first new nuclear power station up and running.
The nuclear advocates also lost the plot regarding subsidies. Zak Goldsmith, editor of the Ecologist and Tory candidate, pointed out that no nuclear reactor has every been built without government subsidies. Yet David Porter, speaking on behalf of the Association of Energy Producers, thinks it can be done. Money will grow on trees, pigs will fly and nuclear power will solve all our problems.
Watch it for yourself on the Newsnight website.
And for more new about nuclear, see all of our recent updates.
