back to article French bid for Brit nuclear sector back on

The UK nuclear industry is back on track for a future hand in hand with that of France, according to reports. British institutional investors, which had previously blocked French nuke giant EDF's bid for Blighty's nuclear plants, are now thought to be on side with the acquisition. The Financial Times this morning says that " …

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  1. amanfromMars Silver badge
    Pirate

    Sound Views

    Good News Week? She Who Dare Win Win Every Time.

  2. Nick Palmer
    Flame

    Of course EDF think...

    ...they can make money here. They're limited to 5 or 6 per cent price hikes in France, but they can (and have) jacked up prices here by over 20 per cent.

  3. John Styles

    Hmm...

    Is it too soon to talk about having the government hanged for treason? Didn't they get the memo, neo-liberalism and the days of flogging the family silver is over?

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    Welcome

    Can I be the first to welcome our cheese eating surrender monkey nuclear lords to the great british pork barrel?

    Please let them succeed, 'cos the muppets in power arent going to get anything done. If the euros can then great.

    Europe really is becoming the lesser of 2 evils compared to our current 'leaders'.

  5. Christopher Rogers
    Flame

    GB PLC

    We may have won the war, but frankly those who fought would be sick to see the state of the nation now. Wonder how long its gonna be before a Yank billionaire owns the crown jewels and has a penthouse suite in the Tower of London?

    The French (who are reluctant to back Britain in nearly every other way) are of course more than pleased to have every Briton paying their eleccy bills to them.

    Premiership football seems to define the way we are going as a nation - Selling everything to foreigners, bringing in foreigners to do our jobs and when it comes to the crunch - we have no skills or talent (or anything infact) of our own (how many home nations in the last European championships?)

    Its disgusting. Sold down the river. National identity? Simply a clause in another contract.

  6. Richard Thomas

    Silly government!

    I don't see what the problem was. All the gov had to do was:

    1. Pass a law to re-nationalise British Energy with no compensation to the private shareholders

    2. Sell whole lot to EDF

    3. Profit!

    No "???" step needed. Methinks they have missed a trick...

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Sooo...

    You want to make sure that a company you own 60%* of the shares in is sold, do you:

    a) Flog off a load of the shares so you no longer have a controlling stake

    or

    b) keep a controlling stake

    According to the government, it's A.

    *I'm not sure about the numbers and frankly can't be arsed to look them up.

  8. David Pollard

    Where did we lose the plot?

    In the 1950s and '60s the UK was up with the leaders in nuclear science, although the over-hasty weapons programme left a costly legacy. We are left with Trident and heaps of radioactive waste. We also have a shortage of nuclear scientists and a looming energy crisis.

    Fourth generation reactors, 'Gen-IV', can be developed and built within ten or twenty years. They can fission all the isotopes of uranium, plus thorium, so make effective use of finite resources. They can be used to denature existing waste by transmuting the long-lived transuranic elements, thus greatly reducing their half-life. They could also safely turn existing stocks of weapons-grade materials into energy.

    Yet while funds were recently made available available to recruit scientists to re-engineer Trident, and presumably to co-operate on the development of bunker-busting mini-nukes, peaceful use of the technology has apparently been ignored.

    The policy of keeping the so-called nuclear deterrent while largely ignoring the peaceful development of civil nuclear energy, with its potential both to provide secure energy generation and to deal with the hazardous waste legacy, seems to have been somewhat absurd.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Unhappy

    So now NuLab's "energy policy" is revealed...

    .. wait until it's too late to do anything else, sell the whole expensive shebang to the French (pocketing the price to prop up the Treasury) then let them build the new nuclear stations.

    Then "the Taxpayer" doesn't pay for energy security, we all do. Via our 'leccy bills. Since the investment doesn't appear on the Government's books, they look prudent, but we all pay anyway.

    Cue handwringing about "energy poverty" and such.

    Bah!

  10. dervheid
    Thumb Up

    Yay!!

    Let's get those puppies built and running. Think of all the sweet, cheap, reliable 'leccy, and the lovely clean, smoke-free air.

    Good ol' Pierre.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "EDF believes it can make a lot of money in Britain"

    Yeah, get the French in, they can invest and build the ugly smelly (okay smell of ionized air maybe) things and then in 20 years time when NuOldLabour gets back in they can Nationalize it and then we will have security of supply. We could put all the nuclear waste in the channel tunnel (preferably beyond half-way 8-) and keep it sealed at the UK end.

    PS: the new site design still sucks even when my proxy removes the huge ads.

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "EDF believes it can make a lot of money in Britain"

    Yeah, get the French in, they can invest and build the ugly smelly (okay smell of ionized air maybe) things and then in 20 years time when NuOldLabour gets back in they can Nationalize it and then we will have security of supply .... no wait we would have to invade Russia or Australia to secure the fuel? We could put all the nuclear waste in the channel tunnel (preferably beyond half-way 8-) and keep it sealed at the UK end.

    PS: the new site design still sucks even when my proxy removes the huge ads.

  13. dervheid

    We're up shit creek...

    partly due to the previous governmental incumbents selling off 'The Family Silver' as it were.

    All the sheeple, blinded by greed, bought their little bundles of shares in BT, British Gas etc, forgetting that as 'Nationalised' industries, they already owned them anyway, and the majority promptly sold them on again, for a nice little short term profit, to the big corporations who knew a good thing when they see one, and could afford to wait for the payback.

    You have to admire the sheer scale and audacity of the scam.

    Guess what sheeple, now it's payback time.

    "Payback's a bitch!"

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Jesters in Downing Street

    this has to be a joke.

    We are in the middle of an economic depression and they are selling off UK jobs and concerns to foreigners, and to top it off it is the key ingredient in business namely energy, yeah that will be the final nail. I think we can bury the UK coffin now.

    By the end of this we shall be calling these isles a new name, it is nearly a call to civil war.

  15. Christopher Rogers
    Unhappy

    @Jesters in Downing Street

    thdailymash.co.uk summed it up brilliantly when referring to the LoydsTSBHalifaxBankofScotland deal with

    "Meanwhile Downing Street sources let it be known the prime minister played a key part in securing the deal which will put 40,000 people out of work."

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Pirate

    Radioactive champagne, anyone?

    Apart from past horrors like Windscale, Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, constant ‘minor’ leaks, spills, irradiation of power plant workers, radioactive contamination of the water table, the political ‘hot potato’ of the costs and dangers of long-term safe storage of radioactive waste for thousands of years, plus costs of securing the waste from terrorists, a big nuclear power plant rollout plan sounds like a great idea.

    Let’s hope that Sarkozy explains well the potentially $90 billion costs and dangers of highly toxic nuclear waste storage when he gives his pro-nuclear sales pitches, as nuclear power does have considerable risks with safety of operation of plants, transportation of waste, and the big issue of waste storage, which remains highly toxic for a very long time, and where water entering the repository must be avoided.

    http://breden.org.uk/2008/07/22/two-french-nuclear-spills-in-one-month/

    Mine's the lead-lined coat.

  17. Steve B
    Alien

    It would be better to do it ourselves.

    We used to be world leaders, we could easily be again,

    We have large housing estates in this area which were built by the government solely to house the local nuclear workers back in the 50s/60s so it is a proven possibility.

    Why don't the government set up a "new"clear development team with a brief to design and build the nuclear reactor with the safest footprint.

    Should the government then sell the generated electricity they would have some form of income other than fleecing motorists. If we over generated we could always sell spare capacity to the Russians or all use electric carts.

    In all ways this has to be a cheaper solution than letting the French in.

    Someone suggested that a later government could renationalise, but in years to come our UK parliament will have the powers of a parish council thanks to us being sold down the line.

    I also agree that the members of government should be liable to be tried for treason, as it is they turn us over with impunity knowing full well that no matter how hard it gets for us they have their troughs sorted.

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