A Place to Stand

   We are heading for blackouts and if current party policies continue have no chance of getting out of recession or even of not falling in deeper.

   Legally we are committed to getting rid of the 82% of our electricity that doesn't come from windmillery and hydro (mainly hydro). The SNP want us to do that by the year 2020.

   As well as that the EU has decreed that about half our coal fired power stations must close to control their emissions.

    Hunterston nuclear power station was officially supposed to close in 2011 and although the government have revised the rules it is working at below capacity and cannot continue forever. Most other nuclear power stations in the UK have already closed and all are supposed to go by 2023 when Torness is slated to close.

     On top of that the moment by moment variability of wind means that it destabilises the grid when it gets to 10% (almost there now)  leaving it vulnerable to crashing.
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 Much of this could be solved quickly simply by reversing policies.

• Decide that with the Met Office now officially predicting rapid cooling we should suspend the Climate Change Act until such time as there is evidence of historically unprecedented warming - which I suspect will be never.
• Allow the free market to immediately start working on extracting shale gas. It might take a couple of years before it starts seriously affecting the economy.
• Replace the UK Atomic Energy Authority with a new organisation, possibly under the same name, probably headed by a retired nuclear submarine officer (their record of safety is fine without the bureaucracy).
• Introduce a legal right to appeal for the removal of any government regulation on energy production which has a 4 times, or worse, greater ratio of cost to benefit than regulations existing in another part of the industry. Thus if nuclear power plants are 1,000 times safer than windmills (they are) most nuclear "safety" regulations would become illegal. Costs, as with most civil cases, to be paid by the loser. This would provide strong pressure for a level regulatory field and reassure investors.
• Allow the immediate building of as many nuclear plants as there is a market for.
• End the carbon levy and involuntary windmill subsidies. I would allow a 2 tier system whereby those who support Luddism and windmillery would retain the current electricity tariff, or indeed be allowed to pay extra as pro-nuclearists say their fall to the market price and that the extra paid by these greens by used to maintain some windmill subsidy. Thus we would be free to choose to be "environmental" or not. Since the state has promoted windmillery this any government employee, including ministers, who does not have a prior record of supporting nuclear would, to show integrity, be expected to pay the "environmental" tariff. Anyone choosing not to would be permanently ineligible for government employment and anybody standing as an MP who did not do so would be legally required to head any electoral communication with "I am a corrupt lying charlatan who has been deliberately impoverishing the electors on a fraud I do not believe in".