http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/6364281.stm
The Government’s nuclear review (AKA whitewash) has been judged biased and misleading and there are calls for a new white paper on the subject.
Tony Blair et al insist that their fixation on nuclear power is a brave and radical attempt to counter global warming when it’s actually a cowardly and backward effort to avoid doing anything. If they want to do something radical they should start subsidising insulation and double glazing for houses in the worst Council Tax bands and paying to put solar water heaters on every South facing roof in the country. Start by reducing the need for centralised energy production and helping those whose energy costs are a greater proportion of their expenditure. It will increase the prosperity of the country, likely encourage further spending on energy saving and cut carbon dioxide production.
Then they can start funding micro-generation and communal energy projects. Water turbines on weirs, local windmills, geothermal for a whole street, that sort of thing. Lots of little projects have a better chance of coming in on time and under budget than one big one and a distributed power generation system will be more robust.
There are a lot of reasons why this won’t happen, but they all have one common factor- Tony Blair’s cowardice. The Daily Mail would moan about the undeserving getting cossetted with free insulation and rail against "Nanny Statism". The NIMBYs would try to halt schemes designed to make them better off. Big Energy companies would complain because they would lose their monopolies and hold over consumers. Most of all, this sort of scheme would give power back to ordinary people, the sort of prospect that gives every politician nightmares.