Despite your implications, we are not bankrupt. We may owe lots of money, but we also have revenues, and there is a large government expenditure programme. I am not the Chancellor, so am not privy to the minutiae of what department spends what, nor how much is coming in as revenue, so I cannot pretend to point to items here and items there which should be cut or increased.
No matter how the government, or the power generating industries for that matter, allocate their budgets over the next 35 years or so, I am saying that they must make room for a major programme of nuclear development. If, in their wisdom, they decide it should come from other departments (the NHS, Education, Defence or whatever), or from increased taxation, or from higher tariffs, or anything else they can think of, then so be it.
GasDad, you are responding to a part of my post which your quotation doesn't refer to, but no matter.
I know we have all these, but:
Coal won't last forever;I did mention environmental considerations. CO2 emissions will become a major issue;Renewables haven't a prayer of doing more than scratch the surface of the projected growth needs;This is not a parochial issue; it is global. Despite deckingman, we can afford to do our bit to cut fossil fuel profligacy. Eventually, we hope, the whole world will be able to afford it too.
I say again - how?
You admit you don't know, but keep making the ascertion.
I admit nothing of the kind!!
If you or your family were faced with a requirement to make a large payment over several years, and this payment is outside your current budget, what do you do? You have to make it. Let's say it's a medical bill or something like that. I'm not looking for specific examples, just painting a scenario.
The answer is, you have to make sacrifices elsewhere. You can look at all your expenditures over the period in question, and cut back here, cancel a holiday there, etc. Or you can just try harder to spend less on a day-to-day basis and periodically check on how it's working out.
This is exactly what I'm saying about government expenditure. I don't bl**dy know where the money's coming from in detail; that's the job of people whom (I hope) know more about it than I do. I only know it has to come from somewhere.
If you insist on my providing an example, then I'll tell you:
Cancel a couple of hospitals;Don't recruit any more nurses and doctors;Sack 1,000 Teachers and 500 policemen;Put VAT up to 25%Increase the price of electricity by 10%Mind you, that's only an example, and probably not my favourite. I could give you many more, and I'm sure, if you bothered to put your mind to it, so could you.
The point is, it's not whether the money's there; of course it is. It's simply a matter of priorities, and the priority of nuclear power is off the board (11 on a scale of 10).
So your argument is that without nuclear power in the future, "people will die in hospitals and in their homes", education will suffer etc. To counter this, you advocate cancelling hospitals, not recruiting nurses and doctors, sacking teachers. Kind if defeats the object doesn't it?
Given that we no longer make anything in this country, the demands on our electricity supply aren't in that bad a shape. We no longer have any ship building industry, steel works, car manufacturing, etc.
Maybe we should just consider cutting out energy waste. That way we save money and nobody has to die.