Sir John said that rather than have two sides “trying to peer into a crystal ball” and guess the future price of electricity many years out, “why not create a nuclear body like the ODA with the expertise of the nuclear sector and get it to build them. You would then sell each station back to the market, with the usual system of regulation.”
Offering to bring a similar level of public service delivery to the one shown at the £9bn London 2012 Olympics, Sir John said: “We would have to choose a consistent design, consistency of operation. But once you’ve built one, building the next is cheaper. The supply chain would be geared up for it, you’d create a lot of skilled jobs. You could get a world class nuclear delivery industry.”
Why would we want to move to a system of regulation and delivery, that of the Olympics, which comes in ten times over budget?
Even the normal nuclear industry is usually only two or three times.
An interesting little note about public projects. There has only ever been, in modern times, one single large government project that came in under time and under budget. And that was Polaris, which we largely bought from the Americans.
This news “story” is about a jobseeker, kind of like the ones run by the Evening Standard on yoof unable to find work.
“why not create a nuclear body like the ODA with the expertise of the nuclear sector…?”
Presume this’ll be one Richie’ll be clamoring for a seat on.
We certainly need somebody with Ritchie’s level of expertise to ensure that no UK nuclear power stations are built near major fault lines.
“why not create a nuclear body like the ODA with the expertise of the nuclear sector and get it to build them. You would then sell each station back to the market, with the usual system of regulation.”
Considering that the ODA built a stadium that then had to be altered so that someone would take it off their hands, let’s not, eh?
That nuclear plants would be MUCH cheaper if we mass produced them is obvious, important and unmentioned.
The reason they aren’t is government regulatory – that government requires total inspection of each. It is as if, after buying a new car, you have to pay government inspectors to take it apart, put it together again and road test it. How much would that cost – maybe £200,000 each time.
It may be a bit before your time Tim but there was the Bloodhound Missile developed by Ferranti which came in significantly under budget and the government of the day demand a refund of some £4 Mn or so.