Yesterday: "I want British companies and British workers to seize the opportunity and lead the world in the transformation to a low carbon economy and I believe that we can create in modern green manufacturing and service one million new jobs" - Gordon Brown.
Today: British Energy is sold to French nuclear company EDF for £12.5 billion, exporting thousands of potential UK jobs to France, dealing a hammer blow to our chances of meeting our legally binding Renewables Obligation.
Killing off renewables
We've often explained how significant growth in nuclear power kills off renewables; if cash and political will favour nuclear power, renewables get suffocated. And, as even EdF admits, the opposite is also true: significant growth in renewables kills off the case for nuclear - perhaps explaining why nuclear industry stooge John Hutton has been so reluctant to embrace renewables.
Costing the consumer
This deal will also end up costing the British consumer. EdF isn't just paying £12.5 billion to buy British Energy; it will also need at least a further £5 billion to build a single reactor (although the costs are spiralling), not forgetting the cost of upgrading the electricity grid and dealing with nuclear waste. It doesn't take a genius to work out that these enormous costs will eventually be passed on to customers in the form of higher energy bills.
Failing to tackle climate change
For what? A low carbon energy sector apparently. But a replacement nuclear programme can only reduce our carbon emissions by four per cent sometime after 2025. A recent report shows that, if the government met its own renewables and efficiency targets, it could reduce the UK's CO2 emissions by up to 37 per cent by 2020 - without new nuclear or new coal plants. And all of this before the first new rector would be operational.
Tying us into dependance on foreign fuels
Neither will nuclear power reduce our dependance on oil and gas. Nuclear can only produce electricity, and eighty-six per cent of our oil and gas consumption is for purposes other than producing electricity. On the other hand, the renewables and efficiency scenarios we've laid out do lead to a reduction in gas use - of up to 42 per cent. In another report, we've shown how industrial combined heat and power plants could halve our gas imports and provide power for two-thirds of UK homes.
