The man who delivered the Olympic Games to Britain has been brought in by the Government to kick-start negotiations on bringing new nuclear power stations to Britain.
Currently nuclear costs are running at what, twice the first budget?
So we bring in someone associated with the Games? You know, the ones supposed to cost £2 billion odd and which had an outcome of £20 billion?
Might actually make more sense to bring in the Parisian who lost the games for them.
…”and a former banker at Goldman Sachs”…
Well, he’ll make money out of it, at least, then.
The Libertarian in me just laughs at the whole absurdity of the State having to “negotiate” the building of a power plant.
Oh, the joys of having an energy “policy”.
Ian B, in Libertarian Utopialand, does construction of nuclear reactors spontaneously “just happen”? No planning procedure, no nimby court injuections, no regulations, just good old fashioned market forces and a healthy dose of entrepreneurship?
(I think it must all look equally comically absurd to socialists. “If energy is a strategic national industry, why does the government have to negotiate with anyone to build a power station? Why doesn’t it just build it itself?”)
No. Ian’s got a point, if it’s the one I think he’s making. Planning procedures, court injunctions, regulations… As half or more of the “stake-holders” involved end up being State funded mouth pieces & truly independent voices are rarely heard, the negotiations are almost purely various arms of the State arguing with itself through its own machinery.
Well, in Libertarian Utopialand, energy companies decide what plant they need and then set about constructing it within whatever systems exist; as opposed to the government saying they want windmills, then ten years later realising that windmills aren’t the right kind of plant, and panicking and then trying to get the right plant constructed when it’s too late.
Oh, and in Libertarian Utopia the government doesn’t force the closure of perfectly good high capacity generating plant to pacify the luddite romantics who populate the dinner tables of Islingtopia.
That kind of thing.
Its quite funny when government do decide what they want and get it done, then realise they want changes or totally different thing to what was wanted.
Two aircraft carriers, planes for them, nuclear subs etc.
Considering how much recent governments have used the conventional armed forces and not used city killer missiles carried by subs you’d think someone would figure out this money could be better spent elsewhere.
Wasn’t criticising Ian B. I hoped my tone would make clear that I’m as quizzical as BIS is about some features of the current system (how do legal and administrative bills compare to construction costs when an airport needs a new runway for instance?) and accept it must look barmy to a libertarian (but not just to them). Nuclear power is one of those issues where I think most people would accept the need for greater democratic controls than other sources. My curiosity really is over what controls or approval procedures might exist in Ian’s LU. Certainly the removal of government interventions, incentives, subsidies etc would leave a very different looking energy market, for better or for worse I’m not qualified to guess.
Get fracking. It’s cheaper.
MBE-
Then I’m probably the wrong Libertarian to ask, because I’m not really a purist and I’m really more interested in finding plausible ways towards greater liberty than debating the precise form of Utopia. I admit I have done a lot of that in the past, but increasingly feel it amounts to a waste of time. So you might be best asking one of those anarcho-capitalist types.
In practical terms, I’m not that bothered that people building rare, big, expensive, dangerous installations have to go through some arduous approval process, though there are various problems with those processes getting hijacked by special interest groups and NIMBYs. The problem here is government trying to decide what energy suppliers ought to build, because government is very bad at this, whereas evil profiteer selfish capitalists are better at it, since if they build the wrong thing they lose money and possibly get entirely creatively destroyed. Unless the State pays them to build the wrong thing- like windmills and orders them to decomission perfectly good current plant- in which case you end up with this kind of fiasco.
Why they think some berk from a sector that is predicated on perpetual motion is the right person to fix a sector that is predicated on the second law of thermodynamics boggles the mind.
Ian B, ta for considered response. Indeed harcore anarchocapitalists are interesting, but in my experience quite unreasonable people to discuss anything with. Wonder whether this is a property of utopianists in general.
Ian B, ta for considered response. Indeed harcore anarchocapitalists are interesting, but in my experience quite unreasonable people to discuss anything with. Wonder whether this is a property of utopianists in general.
I don’t know just how hardcore a libertarian I’d be put down as – I just don’t like being told what to do – but it would seem to me that laws are not the only things which can impinge on my liberty.
I think I’m more of a populist liberal individualist or something like that anyway, to be honest.
I’m hoping to meet another one some day.
That’s really nice. However, I’m not exactly sure how you square that with your approach to money issuance.
For nuclear plant, getting back to the original post, I’m perfectly happy that there would be government controls around fuel acquisition and disposal and pollution. Just as I’m happy that there should be food safety controls (that the company that deliberately allows contaminated food out and poisons people is likely to go bust is hardly any comfort to those poisoned in the mean-time.)
The problem is making sure that the controls are appropriate, effective and efficient. And, as Ian said, the main problem with that is special-interest groups. The next is the general lack of competence of government.
Problem with special interest groups, no matter how good they are, they can add to the costs and therefore the price paid by everyone. Without necessarily improving safety, lifespan or speed of the project. Indeed can impact negatively on those.
IIRC we’ve got about two years to build new plant and/or not do the planned closures.
So they really ought to get a move on.
SE-
Because I think financial reform is doable. Do-able. Whichever. As I said in another thread, I see it as one of those things like privatisation that can be done, even if at some point in time it is considered “unthinkable”.
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