"The state-controlled nuclear giant EDF has launched a legal claim against the French government for more than EUR8.0 billion (USD8.2 billion) in lost earnings resulting from the order to sell more nuclear electricity at below market-level prices this year."
Hah, whatever the payment (if any) received by EDF the French Gov owns
84% of it so will effectively recoup the bulk of it one way or another.
I wonder if some executive lost out on his bonus through missing profit targets?
It does seem a bit of an own goal!
That sounds a bit like seeing yourself. I'd have thought that if they are selling at a loss then the owners being the same as the company in many respects, must be able to stand the losses, after all as EDF is big abroad, here for a start soak other countries for the missed profits. This is precisely why big companies controlled by states should not be in themselves the sole decider of prices outside of their own market. This in effect is the same as What Putin is doing, its what the Opec countries did last time and nobody ever seems to learn the lessons from history. True you may be on the gain side today, but the loser on something else later on. Brian
I wouldn't mind even 16% of 8bn Euros in my trading account...
The cartel is OPEC+, they are doing it, not Putin alone.
Our governments are responsible for giving this power to Opec+, because we sanctioned Russia, Iran, Venezuela, and didn't plan for alternative supplies.
France did plan alternatives, after the 1970/80s oil crisis, but overtime, they forgot why. Still, I guess everyone has had a sharp reminder now.
In the UK, in many ways Thatcher is to blame, she chose to rely on gas, use up all our own gas, presumably expending future governments to change course when the need arose, but these decisions have an inertia to them.
No, at that time, there was an overwhelming case for gas. Interest rates were so high that high capital cost projects - nuclear - were simply not viable when matched up against gas. The real culprit was Blair who simply failed to be interested in infrastructure at all, at a time when gas was running out and let that idiot Miliband make a complete rats arse of the Climate Change Act committing us to EU 'renewable obligations' to the nth degree.
And then with the Liberals in coalition the policy was entirely driven by incompetent Liberal ideology.
And finally Princess NutNutz has bent Boris brain towards net zero bollocks.
I will vote for any party that is 100% against renewable energy
And if it wasn't for the anti-fracking brigade, we'd be heading back towards self sufficiency. Bloody greens, again!
Me too!
I will vote for any party that proposes 24/7 continuous power, independent of weather without burning fossil fuels. That will mandate nuclear.
If it wasn't for the greens, we would now be fully self-sufficient in energy supply.
We've been over this before. What you are talking about is largely a notional accounting issue. Government's could have invested in nuclear. It would have offered much better energy stability, security. There were plenty of reasons why it wasn't a good investment for private companies. It was her simplistic/dogmatic pursuit of privatisation that destroyed Nuclear.
She invested in the military, for security, she should have invested in nuclear energy, nuclear know how, for security.
Blair was an outstanding PM, outstanding in the fact that he was on the wrong side of nearly every big political issue, and yet he got away with it due to living in a period of booming world economies. But nuLab, only occupied power for 13 years, of the last 35.
It makes sod all difference, who I vote for. I'm conservative, small c, so obviously support nuclear, a proven solution, with huge potential to get more economic. But I have no objection to them playing with offshore wind, as long as they don't oversell the potential, or rely on it as an alternative to nuclear.
Yes, we should have done that. That we didn't, is down to the way government is organised in this country. If she had, then the Opposition would have pointed out the extra cost which would have been a political problem. In France, they can build for longer term and declare that the cost is a state secret, so discussion is not possible.
Energy costs seem to largely be a fiction, nuclear and renewables. It's very rare you hear anything concrete, people just support their team. The Greens painted a rosy renewable picture and enough of the public bought it. So politicians say they support it, genuinely ignorant or cynically, you never know.
I think Thatcher would have had to sell nuclear as a dream. I'm not French, but I guess the 70s Oil Crisis allowed them to sell it as a matter of national security. Britain had North Sea Oil/Gas, so I guess we felt secure. By the time the North Sea was running out, we had forgotten the 1970s.
Thatcher was busy selling Nuclear Weapons as the dream of security.
Yes, the French do seem better at planning/big projects. Perhaps due to bureaucracy, which also has downsides.
They didn't need to. The frogs arent as stupid as everyone else except russia/ukraine/japan and all accepted lots of nuke without it needing to be sold.
That wasn't really what it was aboit either given the extensive number of nuke in the uk then.
But are now being reminded about how useless renewables are.
That's overstated too.
Not really.
Not with their nukes, VFTs, Airbus and Concorde.
No, it's for the reason I gave. Plus that the populace by and large believes that (1) the State is right, and (2) if the State is wrong, then (1) applies.
plus the French state was less exposed to action in the courts: good old Revolutionary tradition of the courts being subordinate to Parliament.
Nuclear is not a fiction. It can be very accurately costed IF you know in advance how long approval will take. And how long a build punctuated by regulatory setbacks will take Every year your loan isn't producing electricity adds 7.5% (or whatever the cost of the capital is) to the overall bill. Renewables are a fiction, because no one* costs the externalities - the inefficient grid and backup strategies and the cost of turning it off when there is too much..
The true cost of renewables reflects in your cost of living and your electricity bills.
*Except me.
And of not being independant of the police - see "Murder in Provence". In Geneva, in times past, if you went to the old town you might see the building of the "Department of Justice and Police".
Yes, every year, a loan adds 7.5, or whatever the discount rate is, but income rises with inflation. I'm saying the discount rate only matters in how much it differs from the forward rate (inflation). If inflation is 7.5% and the discount rate is 7.5% it is easy to structure a cheap loan. If inflation is 0 and the discount rate is 3% it is difficult to finance a 50 year.
Really speaking, we don't know inflation, particularly electricity price inflation, so that is a fiction. Also, the difference between the discount rate and inflation is significantly controlled by government.
So what I'm also saying is that the government shouldn't have sacrificed nuclear investment for a largely notional accounting trick. Private companies can't ignore government fiscal policy, but the government can, to a certain extent. Which is why nuclear should be publicly owned.
Yes, I get that, although, (a minor correction), I think building technologies to absorb free excess energy is quite possible, the least of our problems.
I think my current bills are dominated by not having nuclear, not having storage, and having stupid foreign policy. Renewable subsidy cost pales into insignificance, compared to the negative effect they have had stifling a sensible nuclear solution.
HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.