Costing the Earth, Radio4, Thurs 22nd Dec, 21:00

[Blue Peter]

Did anyone hear this? It was about the recent promotion of nuclear in UK, and what had changed between the Energy White Paper of 2003 (nuclear = pondlife scum) and now (nuclear = great white hope). Unfortunately, due to Christmas present wrapping duties, etc., I couldn't hear what explanation was offered. Did anyone else (oh, and I don't have the technology to "listen again").

I did hear the end bit, which basically said that the decision was with Gordon Brown, since ultimately it depended on the Treasury stumping up. And, for a wannabe PM, he was facing a big gamble: if he went with nuclear, then that is where all the money would go (and not to other renewables), so if it all went Pete Tong (still a considerable danger with nuclear), there wouldn't be a fall-back position.

Oh, and Malcolm Wickes, energy minister, was talking about speeding up planning permission for nuclear. This sounded worrying, except he said that it would be like reducing the time from 15 years to 10 years (of course, VERY worrying if we are relying on nuclear to get us out of this mess),


Peter.