On Sat, 21 Feb 2009 13:25:05 -0800, Larry Jaques
wrote:

On Sat, 21 Feb 2009 18:48:06 +0000, the infamous Mark Rand
scrawled the following:



The only positive side of selling the nationalized UK power generation
infrastructure to the Krauts and Frogs is that the Frogs aren't too hung up on
nuclear power. OTOH, when it was a nice state owned monopoly, we weren't too
hung up about it either. Pity about the last 20 years though...

What happened in your past two decades, Mark?


No new nuclear plants planned since the privatization and rape of the CEGB.
Sizewell B was commissioned, but that was already in progress at the time.
Numerically, more than half of the 19 plants built in the UK will have been
shut down by next year and by the time the next batch come on line (2017 at
the earliest if the NIMBYs don't get in the way) we'll only have four plants
running. The privatized utilities went for cheap, quick-build gas and combined
cycle plants. These, of course, offer a quick return to a business that's
interested in the next quarter's results rather than the next decade. They
also have used a significant proportion of the total natural gas available
from the North sea, so that we're now dependant on Russian gas.


Bah Humbug :-(

Mark Rand
RTFM