Some progress on nukes - by Richard... Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Some progress on nukes - by Richard... Wednesday, March 31, 2010

A great deal is heard about the need for more nuclear energy, but we hear very little about progress in the popular media about renewing the nuclear estate.

An indication of the timescale, however, comes in the regional newspaper, The Daily Post, with an update on plans to commission a new nuclear reactor at Wylfa in Anglesey, North Wales.

The existing plant, one of the original Magnox reactors, was in the news last year when it had been taken over by the state owned Nuclear Decommissioning Agency. This meant that EU rules on state aid prevented selling electricity at below market rates to the local aluminium smelter, thus forcing its closure.

With the plant itself now due for closure in December, the site has been acquired by a consortium of E.ON UK and RWE npower, calling itself Horizon Nuclear Power. It is saying that "given the right market conditions" it aims to apply for planning approval in 2012. All things then being equal, it will construct a nuclear facility with up to 3,300MW of generation capacity. The target for completion is 2020.

This is the first of what will be the new batch of up to ten new nuclear plants, and that gives some indication of where we stand. The 2020 date is undoubtedly optimistic, and some slippage is almost inevitable, more so as already the greenies are gathering (pictured) to express their disapproval.

On that basis, the very earliest we can expect new nuclear capacity it about 2020, but possibly a good few years later. That is progress, of a sort, but rather confounds Ed Miliband's hopes that some of the new plants could be producing energy by as early as 2018.

The energy gap, therefore, is there. It is real and it is going to take a lot of gas capacity to fill it. The wind fantasy is never going to deliver.

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The land of perpetual crisis - by Richard...

Strangely, some might think, for a blog which was founded specifically to track EU affairs – with a view to fighting the referendum promised by Blair that never happened – I haven't covered the Greek financial crisis.

Partly, this was because another matter claimed my attention, the all-embracing issue of "climate change" which has within it the potential to damage the European Union when, as indeed it must, a core policy crashes and burns. Mainly though, the lack of attention stemmed from a combined sense ofdéjà vu and ennui - the EU was in yet another crisis. 

The thing is that the EU is always in a crisis. It lives for crises. The very construct is a living embodiment of the doctrine of crisis, exploiting the most powerful and effective dynamic in politics, the "beneficial crisis" as a means of effecting its one and only policy – political integration.

Thus, the idea that, because of the financial incompetence of Greece, the corruption of its leaders and much else besides, the euro was under threat, was nothing new and nothing of very great interest. It was always meant to be that way. 

The whole concept of a common currency was fraught from the very start. Without an economic government, it could not survive, yet it had been set up lacking that essential component. Those who predicted it must fail were right, of course. But only in the sense that if the currency continued without that government, it had to fall. 

But that was the plan – the very core idea. Sooner or later, the members of the eurozone would have to confront the inevitable – something they were not ready to countenance when the currency was launched. There would eventually be an overwhelming crisis which would force a choice between collapse or taking the next major step towards full integration.

And so, it seems, it has come to pass. The crisis has reached the stage where the "colleagues" are having to confront that choice – as was always intended. I remember Prodi – a professor of economics – saying as much shortly after he had stood down as commission president. It is make or break time ... again.

This sense of perpetual crisis is admirably captured by Iain Martin today in The Wall Street Journal. With the weary sense of an old hand who has seen it all before, he tells us that it is easy to overcook the idea of the European Union being in crisis. 

He observes of the EU that it is always said - by its supporters and its critics alike - to be approaching one sort of exciting denouement or another. But then, he says, it passes. The caravan moves on and in time another potential disaster that can be negotiated around swings into view. 

And that is exactly what is happening all over again. As Martin says, this has long been the pattern. The EU is forever having supposed make or break moments that turn out to be no such thing. 

To illustrate his point, he reminds us of the Nice summit in December 2000. And if he remembers it, because he was there, so do I. There was a sense of drama, the sense of make or break, the sense that another major step was in the offing and that there was no turning back.

It was, says Martin, presented in those terms. But it is also the case, he adds, that only denizens of the European Commission, civil servants in foreign ministries and journalists who make it their business to care can really remember what it was all about. 

That is not entirely true – political nerds like myself remember it equally well, not least because I revisited the drama when researching for The Great Deception. With the historical perspective of a few years, it was evident what a close-run thing it had been yet, despite all that, pre-ordained.

That summit was about a new treaty to clear the decks for enlargement. That was the excuse. But he real objective was the same as it had always been – to take the next step in political integration. The commission, too unwieldy to govern on the original Monnet model, had to be slimmed down. More qualified majority voting was needed – as it always was – to prevent institutional seizure.

Martin draws a pen picture of the scene. He tells us that, in Nice, for several days "we journalists, many hundreds of us," were housed in the large conference center in town and fed rather agreeable French food and wine. We barely saw any real politicians or officials, he says, continuing thus: 

Occasionally they appeared in the hall to give us briefings, which made it clear that this was a make or break moment. We nodded in sage fashion and wrote pieces explaining why this was make or break for the EU. And then - surprise, surprise - in the early hours of the last morning of the summit a deal was done. It was make, not break, as it was always going to be.

Leaping ahead in Martin's own account, which is all so dreadfully familiar, we come to a passage where he tells us that the Greek crisis has been the real deal, a proper emergency for the European project. 

The architects of the euro, he says, were warned that, on its own, a currency union wouldn't magically encourage southern European states to start producing, saving and managing their nation's affairs in the manner of the Germans. Those offering warnings have been proved correct and the flaws in the euro's design are now apparent to even those who insisted at the time that there were none.

But that much is egregiously and wholly wrong. The architects of the euro always knew that there were fundamental flaws in the construct as it was implemented. But, politically, that was the only basis on which it could be implemented. It would need a beneficial crisis to take the next step. And now we have it. 

Nevertheless, Martin has the next bit right. After much wrangling, he says, a deal to support stricken Greece is in place, but only with the Germans enforcing strict conditions. This is a sticking plaster solution, he adds. What must come, logically, is something close to a form of economic government by those states that want to stay as the inner core of the euro. It might be called by another name, but that is what it will be.

That, he tells us, leads to a full-blown political crisis for the EU itself. The choice for various countries then is between trying to be part of an inner core organised around the euro with coordinated fiscal policy, or standing outside it in a trading zone built on cooperation rather than coercion.

And here we go again ... again. The Eurosceptics, in countries such as Britain, are just starting to realize this, says Martin. But not this eurosceptic. I have known it all along, and have said so many times, boring even myself into insensibility.

The euro's problems will force its strongest members into much closer integration than even they currently envisage, says Martin. But no, that is wrong too. It was always "envisaged". For, as Martin correctly says, other than breaking up the euro they can do nothing else. Standing still isn't an option. And allowing the break-up of the euro isn't an option either.

So, Martin concludes – and I concur - in this way that old discussion about there being two distinct Europes inside the EU is coming back rapidly into fashion. Sounds like it has the makings of a proper crisis, he says. He could have said a "beneficial crisis". That's what this is, and always had to be.

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Global warming - by Richard...

We have had heavy global warming here, in deepest West Yorkshire, starting about an hour before midnight and lying on the ground. It continueth, even unto the darkest hour ...

I just thought you would like to know that.

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The universal politician - by Richard...

It is a common complaint, voiced by an increasingly disenfranchised electorate, that all the main political parties are the same.

While denying it on the one hand, however, we find that the two main parties are only too anxious to agree with that proposition – at least as far as "green" issues are concerned.

Thus we learn that, "with the recent release of the Treasury's Strategy for National Infrastructure and the Tory Energy Policy, spending on renewable energy and modernizing UK energy infrastructure has emerged as unique common ground between the major parties."

The "common ground" is, of course, far from unique – virtually every aspect of this policy area is shared by the two main parties, with only marginal differences on matters of detail.

But this particular bit of "common ground" concerns the £2 billion Green Investment Bank, announced by chancellor Alistair Darling in the budget speech, "which will focus on investing in green transport and sustainable energy, in particular offshore wind power."

Any sensible opposition would, of course, be howling with derision at the prospect of investing heavily in offshore wind power, to say nothing of the wholly unrealistic sum allocated, barely one percent of what might be needed overall.

But the response of Conservative shadow energy and climate change minister Greg Clark is simply to declare: "The announcement in the Budget of a Green Investment Bank is welcome - it is an idea that the Conservatives first proposed last year".

So, we learn, with agreement on the scale of low carbon energy and transportation infrastructure needed in the UK, renewable energy looks set to grow significantly. What remains to be seen is who will be in government.

To deal with the increasingly likely possibility of a hung parliament, unprecedented contingency plans are being drawn up by the most senior civil servant to avoid any economic crisis.

Officials under the direction of Sir Gus O'Donnell, the cabinet secretary, are finalising details to ensure a coalition government can be agreed swiftly. For the first time, opposition parties will be able to call on civil servants to analyse policies that may be part of a deal.

Thus, win, lose or draw, whichever parties get to be in government will not make the slightest whit of difference, across a vast range of policies. We have come to the age of the universal – and interchangeable – politician.

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It was never going to be any different - by Richard... Tuesday, March 30, 2010

The parliamentary science and technology select committee has done its job on the East Anglia CRU "inquiry", finding that, "There was no evidence to challenge the 'scientific consensus' that global warming is induced by human activities."

It was not set up to do that, it was not competent to accomplish such a task, and the timescale afforded would have, in any case, rendered it impossible. But, despite that, the committee has found precisely that. It will be quoted endlessly by the "warmists" – all the rest is detail. And, in due course, that is what all the other CRU inquiries will find.

Thus, the establishment looks after its own. There are far too many with their fingers in the tillfor it to have been any different.

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How government corrupts science - by Richard...

You can read it here, with a commentary from Jo Nova here.

Actually, I should not be saying merely, you can read it. What I really mean to say is, you willread it. This is compulsory. You need to know this – if you don't already.

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Apples and oranges - by Richard...

It isn't the done thing to criticise other worthy toilers in the field, especially when they do a reasonably good job – although that hasn't stopped us in the past. 

But, having written with Christopher Booker, way back, a book called The Mad Officials, we pride ourselves on knowing a thing or two about regulation and its enforcement. Thus, we could not let the latest offering by Open Europego by without some sort of comment.

Reviewed by the redoubtable Bruno Waterfield in The Daily Telegraphtoday, we are told that "EU laws cost twice as much as British ones to enforce," an assertion based on a report by the said Open Europe.

Its study finds that Brussels legislation has cost the British economy £124 billion, accounting for 71 percent of the total cost of all red tape, both national and European, implemented in Britain since 1998. And all this comes from looking at thousands of official impact assessments, thus finding that EU regulation is 2.5 times less cost-effective than domestic laws. 

On that basis, we are earnestly advised by Sarah Gaskell, author of the study, that: "Our research clearly shows that it's far more cost-effective to regulate domestically than is it is to legislate through the EU. This means that passing laws as close as possible to the citizen is not only more democratic, but also vastly cheaper." 

So far so good, but while we are entirely happy with the idea that EU legislation does cost more than equivalent British law, Sarah Gaskell has a little difficulty proving this. The way she comes to her conclusion is by assessing the national cost-benefit ratios of EU-derived laws, compared with the same ratios derived from dissimilar British laws.

Since the notional cost-benefit of EU laws yields – according to estimate – a ratio of 1.02, while the UK law delivers 2.35, this allows the assertion that EU law is 2.5 less cost-effective. Unfortunately though, Ms Gaskell is not comparing like with like. She is comparing apples with oranges. 

For instance, she cites the cost of EU environmental regulation coming into force since 1998, which she asserts is 18 percent of the entire cost of regulation over the same period, or £31.7 billion. But, to make a valid comparison, she would have to compare the cost of current regulations with what might have been our environmental legislation had we not been in the EU.

Here, a "what might have been" assessment is somewhat imponderable, as who knows what an independent British government might have done, given its propensity for making all sorts of draconian laws without EU intervention. It is not beyond the realms of possibility that we could have even worse legislation than we have how.

This is certainly feasible with our raft of food safety laws. Before even EU law was introduced, our "Mad Officials" were storming through the country, making insane and expensive demands which had nothing to do with EU requirements – or even the then current law of the land. 

And the EU laws that were eventually introduced were based largely on a British initiative. But for the restraining effect of other member states, they could have been even more rigorous than they actually are.

Therein lies a central flaw in trying to assess the impact of our membership of the EU. Shortly, on 1 April, the British government is to introduce the CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme, stage two of the "cap and trade" programme brought in by the ETS. It is estimated that the first full year of operation will cost £1.4 billion, but the scheme is entirely home grown. It has nothing to do with the EU.

The problem, we concluded, when it comes to regulation, is not primarily with the EU. It is with our own government, which embraces EU laws, asks for more and then creates its own. Departure from the EU could bring us even more – notwithstanding that much of current EU law is actually of international law, implemented via the EU, that we would implement anyway, whether we were in or out of the EU.

If we had a government interested in good governance, a government that was capable of producing good law and enforcing it wisely, like as not it would find EU membership abhorrent. We would never have joined and, even now, we would be on our way out.

Thus, fashionable and entertaining though it is to mount a spurious case against "Brussels", the real enemy is in our own back yard - our own government and our own legislators. In tactical terms, what we need to do is work out what sort of government we want, and how we want to be governed. Demanding that model, one then hopes, would necessarily put us in the EU departure lounge.

But simply longing for our departure is also to countenance putting us in a situation where we are outside the EU, with not very much else changed. In which case, the question is: why bother? 

Then, Open Europe is not in the business of seeking our withdrawal from the EU. Much of the report is devoted to improving EU law – a forlorn endeavour, not least when the British government is a major cheerleader in demanding more. Thus, mixing metaphors horribly, the cart is before the horse. Fill the cart with good old English apples, bugger the oranges and sort out where to put the horse.