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[Doctor Gollum]

EDF have announced today that the cost of building Hinkley point C will be £1.5 billion more than originally forcast and will now cost £19.6 billion.  It will also be delayed by 15 months and they hope to finish the first reactor by the end of 2025.

In 2007 they said we'd be cooking our Christmas dinners in 2017 using electricity from Hinkley Point C! 

Who'd have thunk it? 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-40479053

And all built using Chinese technology apparently. Seriously why aren't we building these things with our own government taking charge rather than these multiple sub-contractors to companies half way around the world? And why have we waited so long to build new ones?

Simple. The Government doesn't build, or operate nuclear (or any other form of energy) powerstations. It's core business is budget management within a democratic structure. However, it doesn't stop them from securing future energy production as part of that remit.

A French company happens to be one firm responsible for our electricity production, and they wouldn't be using a Chinese consortium to build their contribution if it wasn't commercially the best option.

The best deal isn't always the cheapest... this applies to pretty much anything to some degree. Also, the Chinese element is not to be sneered at... managing nuclear energy is a proven process which cannot be compromised, and is very different to making billions of 10p items using a black and white photocopy of an old postcard picture of something for reference and calling it done

[grifter]

EDF have announced today that the cost of building Hinkley point C will be £1.5 billion more than originally forcast and will now cost £19.6 billion.  It will also be delayed by 15 months and they hope to finish the first reactor by the end of 2025.

In 2007 they said we'd be cooking our Christmas dinners in 2017 using electricity from Hinkley Point C! 

Who'd have thunk it? 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-40479053

And all built using Chinese technology apparently. Seriously why aren't we building these things with our own government taking charge rather than these multiple sub-contractors to companies half way around the world? And why have we waited so long to build new ones?

Simple. The Government doesn't build, or operate nuclear (or any other form of energy) powerstations. It's core business is budget management within a democratic structure. However, it doesn't stop them from securing future energy production as part of that remit.

A French company happens to be one firm responsible for our electricity production, and they wouldn't be using a Chinese consortium to build their contribution if it wasn't commercially the best option.

The best deal isn't always the cheapest... this applies to pretty much anything to some degree. Also, the Chinese element is not to be sneered at... managing nuclear energy is a proven process which cannot be compromised, and is very different to making billions of 10p items using a black and white photocopy of an old postcard picture of something for reference and calling it done

Anytime they use sub-contractors/foreign firms they seem to end up way over budget and everything falls apart after 5 years. Then they charge a fortune to come and repair it everytime. Same deal with the roads, all maintenance farmed out to contractors, the roads never seem to get repaired properly; the remit of those companies seems to be very loosely worded and responsibility seems to go down a black hole.

[Lizzie Zoom]

It is all down to market forces in a capitalist system, and the same forces control the pricing structure and actually keep costs lower than they could be.

Other systems have been tried, like state controlled Soviet industry, and that proved to be a very inefficient, lack of options, expensive, unimaginative and totally uncompetitive road to failure.