I feel kind of obliged to comment on today's announcement to build more nuclear stations in my capacity as so many people's tame evil nuke person (A Homer-Ned-composite?).

Whatever I may think, and that is hardly news let's face it, there are some important comments being made by such diverse groups as GreenPeace, Friends of the Earth and the I Mech E (who still manage to convince me to part with almost £200 a year for the privilege of using a few letters!).

The two environmental organisations rightly point out that a decision to build more of any kind of power station is not the key issue - it's more about how much power we use on the first place; less bad is not the same as good.  The IMech E notes - as the power industries have been saying for as long as I can recall - that there's no one much left who can do any design work.  Whatever technology we opt for, we'll have to buy it in and then modify it to meet our safety standards - possibly digging up 'dead' experts to help out along the way.  Even supposing we had a ready to build design for a large power station available today, and even if there was a site available and planning granted, and even even if there were no overruns, no hitches and no protests - along with a flock of flying pigs - it'd be around 10 years before anything got generated.

The BBC website has a nice little 'power calculator' thingy you can play with to mix and match your power generation options.  Greener energy is also dearer energy and there's the rub - are we really willing to use less and/or pay more in the interest of later generations, or do we simply want to close our eyes to the consequences and 'spend, spend, spend?'