It doesn't look much, but it could be another small nail in the coffin of British nuclear power ambitions.

SSE is by no means a big player, but it was part of the NuGen consortium, linked with France's GDF Suez and Spain's Iberdrola – two seriously big players. They are now buying SSE's 25 percent share in the consortium, leaving both companies with an equal share of 50 percent.

Apart from leaving another chunk of British infrastructure in foreign hands – if it ever happens - this is seen as a blow to the British government which wants to see a series of new nuclear plants in operation by 2025. "It sends a big signal to the government saying: 'Look you've got to give us more security'," said Karen Dawson, director in the energy sector at consultancy PwC.

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I'm increasingly coming round to the idea that infra-structure should be owned by the Queen.
She should then choose an executive board of long-term planners whose brief is constant regeneration and then lowest cost to consumer in that order.
Infra-structure by its nature is decadal in project length and is simply beyond the attention span of lustrum politics.
Long-term thinkers with the interests of the Nation at heart have been eased out of our political system. Lord Pearson is an example.

'Does anyone anywhere believe anything they are told, on any subject, by any government official, financial expert or banker? Beneath all the outright lies, hopeless spin and half truths there is a more fundamental and corrosive problem. WE DON’T BELIEVE YOU!'

It's not just governments or banks. I've just spent a dispiriting few weeks teaching a pre-sessional English course for foreign students on an MA programme at an English university. Despite the wholesale inability of these students to be able to string together a comprehensible sentence, the unspoken order of the day was to make sure that nobody failed, thus guranteeing income for the university. Deception, fraud, call it what you will, but it devalues and debases everyone involved and the MA qualification itself. The irony of this is that, for some of the students on English courses, they will end up better qualified than the teacher who taught them, and could, theoretically, be considered for a teaching job where I wouldn't even get past the CV stage.

This will be a part of bufhulne's script of "I tried to build them but as I have been saying they are not economic" As everyone knows major infrastructure projects such as a Nuclear plants need surety of long term finance and an agreed level of production otherwise no sane private company will take the risk.

On a slightly different tact I saw this from Zero hedge which lead me to this from watching Germany in one of the comments. It doesn't matter where you look the waste and incompetence just gets worse and worse.

By the way the company mentioned is big into wind turbines that they have critical gearbox elements manufactured in China. A conversation I have recently with an engineer suggests that these gears are not going to last the distance and indeed some have failed under test. Makes you wonder how long it will be before our off shore turbines are all at a standstill.

Nuclear power plants cann be built from the first spade of concrete in 3 years. Indeed China is doing so.
In May 2006 Tony Blair officially reversed his opinion that nuclear was "an unattractive option" and acknowedged "replacement of nuclear power stations....If we don't take these long-term decisions now we will be committing a serious dereliction of our duty to the future of this country."

He was right. Indeed he was massively understating the shortages we face because of the closure of aging Obviously our enerfy problems would noe be solved and prices far lower had both he and his successors not been committing seriously dereliction of duty. Despite the coalition's alleged willingness to consider nuclear it is clear Huhne intends to string out any permission to build until Hell, or at least Britain, freezes over and SSE have decided not to waste their time playing.

With a free market in power not restricted by politicians we would have electricity at 7% of the current cost. Clearly we would neither have pensioners dying of the cold nor a recession if that was the case. They are undeniiably corrupt, lying, thieving, fascist parasites personally stealing nearly nearly £1200 for every person annually.

No just until his time at the table is over!

With a bit of luck Huhne will end up spending some time at Her Maj's Pleasure for conspiracy to pervert the course of justice. I believe that carries a life term, but the going rate for pols seems to be four months. Never mind, anything to get rid of the bastard.