Wednesday, April 04, 2007
A NEAT WAY FOR SCOTLAND TO GO NUCLEAR
Politically there is virtually zero chance that this would be accepted but in financial & engineering terms this is how Scotland should replace the 50% of our electricity we are shortly going to lose.
1) Get our nuclear stations, possibly excluding Dounraey which is basically an experimental facility, formed as a separate company. This is similar to the way that Scotland's Railtrack, which was also renationalised in same dubious way, was separately put under our authority.
2) Get Westminster to allow immediate type approval of French, US & Canadian reactor designs. While Westminster Labour are committed to more nuclear they are also currently supporting the Atomic Energy Authority's desire to spend 5 years deciding the foreign reactors work (they obviously do & have for years) & that Hunterston & Torness are suitable places to put reactors (they obviously are & have done for years). Hunterston is going to close in 4 years & it takes 4 years to actually build a reactor so if we don't want blackouts we can't afford spending an extra 5 years moving paper around. Since Labour are desperate that the lights not go out I think they would go for this.
3) There are many billions in a fund already put aside for decommissioning reactors. The inexpensive way to decommission is to lock up the reactor for 50 years until the radioactivity is down to safe levels (all the stuff bout reactor waste being dangerous for millions of years is propaganda - highly radioactive waste is highly radioactive purely because it has a short half life). We undertake to move back the boundary fences at Hunterston & Torness & decommission the current reactors by locking them up, not letting in the public, & leaving them till they are safe - for this we get paid at least several hundred million £s.
4) We set Scottish Nuclear up as a public company which builds as many new reactors as there is demand for at Hunterston & Torness. Since 1MW reactors have been bought off the shelf for $1 billion ((£550 million) this company could afford to do so with the fund money & only a little extra by borrowing & by selling 10% of the shares publicly, though it might be better actually invest a token amount ourselves.
5) Government leaves the company management to the 10% shareholders, who understand such things & merely accepts the profits.
Scotland would thereby get as much electricity as we can use, at a substantially lowered price & would have a national, dividend paying, asset worth many many billions of £s for virtually nothing.
1) Get our nuclear stations, possibly excluding Dounraey which is basically an experimental facility, formed as a separate company. This is similar to the way that Scotland's Railtrack, which was also renationalised in same dubious way, was separately put under our authority.
2) Get Westminster to allow immediate type approval of French, US & Canadian reactor designs. While Westminster Labour are committed to more nuclear they are also currently supporting the Atomic Energy Authority's desire to spend 5 years deciding the foreign reactors work (they obviously do & have for years) & that Hunterston & Torness are suitable places to put reactors (they obviously are & have done for years). Hunterston is going to close in 4 years & it takes 4 years to actually build a reactor so if we don't want blackouts we can't afford spending an extra 5 years moving paper around. Since Labour are desperate that the lights not go out I think they would go for this.
3) There are many billions in a fund already put aside for decommissioning reactors. The inexpensive way to decommission is to lock up the reactor for 50 years until the radioactivity is down to safe levels (all the stuff bout reactor waste being dangerous for millions of years is propaganda - highly radioactive waste is highly radioactive purely because it has a short half life). We undertake to move back the boundary fences at Hunterston & Torness & decommission the current reactors by locking them up, not letting in the public, & leaving them till they are safe - for this we get paid at least several hundred million £s.
4) We set Scottish Nuclear up as a public company which builds as many new reactors as there is demand for at Hunterston & Torness. Since 1MW reactors have been bought off the shelf for $1 billion ((£550 million) this company could afford to do so with the fund money & only a little extra by borrowing & by selling 10% of the shares publicly, though it might be better actually invest a token amount ourselves.
5) Government leaves the company management to the 10% shareholders, who understand such things & merely accepts the profits.
Scotland would thereby get as much electricity as we can use, at a substantially lowered price & would have a national, dividend paying, asset worth many many billions of £s for virtually nothing.
