Far from being a drain on the public purse, new power plants will be major boost to UK economy



The energy infrastructures in the UK are ageing and many power stations are going to reach the end of their lives before 2016. The government is putting forward two separate proposals in which they want to put a floor for the carbon price and a reform of the energy infrastructure. In the first proposal they want to address the carbon pricing problem and discourage high-emitting plants. The second proposal will include four new nuclear plants in the UK, which could safely provide enough power to meet the needs of 40pc of UK homes. Critics suggest that the reform will be a drain on the public purse. In its defense the government stated that the reform will be far from being a drain on the public purse, instead new plant will provide a major boost to the UK economy. Building the plants will in edition create 5,000 new jobs during construction and 1,800 permanent jobs during operation.

 

“The plants we are proposing would contribute hundreds of millions of pounds per year to public funds, through corporation tax, business rates and income tax”

According to what they stated it looks to me as if it is inevitable to reform the energy infrastructures. I believe that with the coming of four new nuclear plants there will be an economy boost like they said. However, when I was reading this article I could not stop thinking of the fact that the UK is one of the countries who opposes against the idée of Iran having a nuclear plant. And here they are building four of them. However, that is a deferent topic. I think the critics did not make a good calculation of what the impact of those plants might be. In contrary to the government which I think did make a good effort and by that presented a very realistic case.