In article ,
mentalguy2k8@googlemail.com says...

Wrong.

For a start it's completely insane to only look at running costs. What
matters is the comparitive overall cost per kilowatt of power produced.
That has to include set up AND shut down costs. Somebody has to pay it.

Not that I'm against the use of nuclear power. However the Magnox nuclear
power stations in the UK were always there more for the military and as a
political statement than for electricity production. The big differences
are that coal fired power stations are cheaper to build, and decommision
safely, but worse in terms of greenhouse gases, and above all not
necessarily dependent on fuel imported from abroad.

A sane policy would include both. A sane policy is not going to happen
whilst the electorate are largely incapable of understanding that nobody
is ever going to give them the free lunches they think they have been
promised.

So the pits are shut down on the basis of propaganda, and the nuclear
industry is run down on the basis of propaganda, greenhouse gas emissions
continue to rise, we import increasingly expensive oil and gas, we
attempt to jury rig old and inefficient nucleart power stations to
continue long after they were supposed to be decommissioned and delay
building safer and more effective replacements. All basically because the
population of the UK mostly can't handle any political idea that takes
more than two sentences to explain, and because we have almost no
politicians prepared to do anything that isn't sanctioned by the editor
of the Daily Wank or which they think they may have to take
responsibility for.