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Nuclear Industry

No, it is not about the grid system; it is about any grid system with a high percentage of nuclear power. The 60 per cent. that the hon. Gentleman proposes would be as dangerous as the 80 per cent. used by the French. The problem is that nuclear power stations cannot easily be turned on or off. Therefore, they are very inflexible. All this talk about base-load—the concept of base-load is an artificial construct because it is only the minimum amount of electricity being used on the grid over a long period—reveals a misunderstanding of one of the basic problems of controlling a grid, which is that it has to be held in balance at every point. Nuclear power cannot do that.