Wasn't too sure at first, especially when I saw the forerunner shown as some sort of example - didn't like that one at all. As it turned out, the one in the programme was a delight, and the occupants (and their neighbours) came across as non-pitas. There's a similar (but smaller) larch box on the south coast near me and it's a total blot on the landscape - looks like a packing case toppled over. The Skye-house architect managed to avoid that particular pitfall, I'm glad to say.
What was a shame however, given that they kept blatting on about how beautiful the views were, was the bloody great windmills a couple of hundred yards away. I noticed that they were careful to show them as little as possible.
Did anyone hear Vine on radio 2 at lunchtime today ? They were debating wind vs nuke now that the Japs in the form of Hitachi have come on the scene to get involved with the British project. Vine came out with a typically hysterical statement that the fissionable material is so dangerous that if a golf-ball sized piece was put at the centre of a football field, you'd be dead before you had managed to walk out of the goal mouth. Where do they get this crap from ?
Now we'll see the electric bills go up. Nothing more expensive than nuclear.I wonder who'll be running/financing all this lot? Are we all/ the gov. getting into more debt?
And we'll be going into nuclear when others are getting out. Typical.
Expected groundless hysteria from Harry, of course ... Listen to Vine's programme from yesterday (Wednesday) , between 1 hour 26 mins and 1 hour 30 mins - assuming you know how.
Vine had a guy from Switzerland on the programme who said that the green lobbyists had managed to get all the nuke shut down over there, after misleading the public and then having a vote on it, and that now, their energy ministers had just announced that bills would increase by 200% as a result, so yes, it will be interesting to see what happens to our bills if we get the nuclear program back up and running. But no matter what, the biggest advantage in my eyes, would be the freeing up of our need to be beholden to the Frogs and Russkies for our energy, at the prices that they charge us. Perhaps when Europe have shut down all theirs, we too will be able to join the TTP club, and sell 'em some back. It would be good to squeeze them until their pips squeak, like they routinely do to us ...
It is completely unacceptable that we might not have enough energy capability to run the country in a few years' time as a result of shutting down all our generation capability to try and meet ludicrous emissions targets, and then trying to replace it with equally ludicrous 'clean' generation methods like wind. If the answer to that is to build some nukes, then that route has my vote. As to it being a Japanese company - specifically Hitachi - who are going to help with this, far from being worried, I am actually reassured, having dealt with Hitachi's products virtually since they first appeared on the market, and in that time, always having found the design and build quality to be right up there with the best.
Now if they had said that Amstrad were getting involved ...
Not once the guvmint is so broke that the power companies tell him to piss off when he tries to sell them electricity at ten times the going rate...and he tries to sue them for breach of contract...whereupon they refuse to supply him at all and he goes totally off line all winter :-)
Worse still a Sinclair Reactor or a Dyson one with transparent windows in the side so you can 'see the neutrons' and 'know when to empty it'
BWRs are rather old hat, like a Porsche, but developed as they are they will do the job, and at a sane price too. Areva has cocked up the AP1000 it seems.
And some of re latest Russian kit aint to bad either.
Are Babcock making the pressure vessels? Or just the turbiney bit with Rolls Royce?
But it was the government who went all 'green' on this.
They wanted out of nuclear, despite the fact that Switzerland being almost 100% hydro nuke - and it doesn't get cleaner than that - has virtually a zero carbon footprint when it comes to electricity.
In which case, the people have learnt a valuable lesson - and as it seems that democracy actually works in Switzerland (relative to here) they might be in a position to do something about it.
The pressure vessels are one bit that is highly likely to be UK sourced, RR are more likely to be involved with the reactor build.
The turbines will be coming from overseas, most likely from France, possibly from Germany or Japan. The UK lost expertise in large turbines during the
1980's because the home market evaporated and without a home market it is often very difficult to sell anything overseas. Nothing wrong with the companies, nothing wrong with the technology - the French bought the UK turbine industry, with French government cash, and then shut it down to protect French jobs.
Was a good prog and nice to see something 'affordable', but I'd have liked it to be less angular. All the hills round it were, err, rounded. The ancient 'black' houses showed the way.
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