The problem is however we as consumers do not know what the up lift is on these parts of the bill.

So the era of power for all is almost over? Oh well, it was nice while it lasted, I guess, like antibiotic usage, it’ll be seen as a past era. Hype? Sure, but so’s your sentence.

Artificially subsidising some energy prices to the degree they create network instability (as you mentioned) will wreck any chance of base-load power surviving is not a good idea, sorry! All this will do is ensure that we have no chance of avoiding widespread blackouts, the use of generators by the rich and that we drive away business by the bucket-load.

This is not the same, at all, as looking at the increasing profits energy companies are making, while raising prices. Fixed maximum profit margins are one measure which should be strongly considered for utilities.

And yes, replacing coal and gas with nuclear makes a massive, massive amount of sense from pollution and environmental perspectives (and even financial ones, as they remove fuel dependence). Otherwise, like Germany, we’ll end up building more dirty coal power stations…their new ones are a little less polluting than the ones which were built in the 1970’s, but still massive polluters!