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What caught my eye was the 4.5% increase in domestic final consumption. Seems those rapidly rising utility bills are not having the effect economists would like us to believe in....
Overall, we seem to be sleepwalking towards what surely must be some kind of major crisis, which could be precipitated by a cold winter this year.
On the media - there was a piece on Newsnight yesterday, by their science correspondant, on 'Tony Blair's conversion to Nuclear power'. This was so devoid of objective analysis on eg. future fuel supplies and costs, that it was completely laughable. Maybe an approach that would get attention would be thorough the tabloids ? How about 'French Nuke rip-off !' as an opener. :)
She was supposed to be investigating why Tony has done a u-turn on the nuclear option - certainly worthy of investigation. Rather than look at the fundamentals of the UK energy balance she preferred to pursue a theory that lobbying by big business was behind the shift.
She even suggested that a key turning point was a report presented to TB that estimated "only 4000" people had died as a result of Chernobyl and this changed his view of the nuclear risk/reward. Now I am no fan of Tony whatsoever, but even I can't see him being persuaded by this argument.
The truth she should have been uncovering is that TB has finally woken up to the energy crisis facing this country. The trouble is its too late. TB has completely run out of credibility and a u-turn of this magnitude on such an immotive topic isn't going to change public opinion - which I believe is firmly against nuclear power.
With Cameron trying to outdo the Greens, I doubt Gordon Brown will risk going against public opinion until he is safely ensconced in No10 after the next general election. It could be 2010 before we get the go-ahead and 2020 before we get any new reactors on-line.
Doubtless in 15 years time, an elderly Paxman will be demolishing some poor minister over their predecessors complete incompetence to plan UK energy. Assuming of course there isn't a blackout that evening.