John Hutton has outlined his vision of a new era of power generation for the UK, which he
likens to the North Sea oil boom.
But unlike invisible, non-invasive offshore drilling, Nuclear Reactors are always local to
quite a few people even if located in areas of sparse population.
In a reverse of Malthusian gloom predicted prior to the industrial revolution, Hutton sees Nuclear Power as the only answer; if we produce 20% of our power this way now, why not more?
The Business Secretary is warming things up in advance of Anglo-French plans for joint expansion of Nuclear Power. Banking on the low-carbon ticket that Nuclear Power undoubtedly has, he also predicts a £20bn spree of investment creating 100,000 new jobs.
He has extrapolated this selling point from the example of the build for Sizewell B in the 1990s which employed 4,000 workers and was sourced from 3,000 UK companies. His audience for this good news was the union Unite.
What he may have missed from his compound approach to this calculation is globalisation and a greatly up-sized European Union; does he really believe jobs and contracts will all be placed with UK business?
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