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£50bn question: do we want faster trains or limitless clean energy?

If I could offer limitless free power I would want a damn sight more than any £50Bn for it. That's under £1000 for every man, woman and child in the UK. £20 a week. I spend more than that on petrol.

If they really can deliver at that price it's an absolute no-brainer, a steal. They can't though, because if they could they would have backers beating down the door. It's an absolute no-brainer.
 
Chiltern trains have already shaved 20 mins off the time from central Birmingham to London further diminishing any time benefit, Ha ha ha, offered by HS2 and are expecting further time savings with improved signalling. In addition Chiltern Trains, owned by Deutsche Bahn, ( is any one surprised it it not owned by a UK concern?) built their own station at Banbury for half the cost of the estimate put forward by the stunningly useless Network Rail.
With HS2s costs rising 30% every 2 years and the DfT having been caught out, once again, using out of date, 6 year old skewed to them, test criteria and three year old, out of date estimates for current costs, how much longer will we have to wait until HS2 goes off the rails for good and a line is drawn under the 2 billion already wasted. No wonder they don't want to publish any accounts. Had we spent that money wisely we would already be halfway to the extra capacity they, for some reason, crave, without the necessity to pour further concrete all over the UK countryside.
Civil servants should pay the price for their fcuk ups not the taxpayer. It is time to sweep the Dft clean and start again. Already £30 billion in debt and they want to add more!
It is now quite clear, even to the Public Accounts Committee just how big a white elephant HS2 is.
With respect to the OP, his question really should have been at least a £100 billion one and probably considerably more.
 
steve watkins said:
Chiltern trains have already shaved 20 mins off the time from central Birmingham to London further diminishing any time benefit, Ha ha ha, offered by HS2 and are expecting further time savings with improved signalling. In addition Chiltern Trains, owned by Deutsche Bahn, ( is any one surprised it it not owned by a UK concern?) built their own station at Banbury for half the cost of the estimate put forward by the stunningly useless Network Rail.
With HS2s costs rising 30% every 2 years and the DfT having been caught out, once again, using out of date, 6 year old skewed to them, test criteria and three year old, out of date estimates for current costs, how much longer will we have to wait until HS2 goes off the rails for good and a line is drawn under the 2 billion already wasted. No wonder they don't want to publish any accounts. Had we spent that money wisely we would already be halfway to the extra capacity they, for some reason, crave, without the necessity to pour further concrete all over the UK countryside.
Civil servants should pay the price for their fcuk ups not the taxpayer. It is time to sweep the Dft clean and start again. Already £30 billion in debt and they want to add more!
It is now quite clear, even to the Public Accounts Committee just how big a white elephant HS2 is.
With respect to the OP, his question really should have been at least a £100 billion one and probably considerably more.
Click to expand...

I am beginning to wonder if the real reason for this project is the fact that a lot of MPs are Lawyers and the squabbling in the courts over land use will get their mates on the gravy train long before any real train sees the light of day.
 
russel said:
I am beginning to wonder if the real reason for this project is the fact that a lot of MPs are Lawyers and the squabbling in the courts over land use will get their mates on the gravy train long before any real train sees the light of day.
Click to expand...

A gravy train for some or limitless clean energy for all?
You don't need to be an MP to see which way to vote.
 
Nic Robinson said:
Dunno about fusion, but the more I think about HS2 the less sensible is seems.
Click to expand...

There are substantial remains of the last main line to be built in England.

With a bit of forethought and some disruption to certain cities such as
Leicester and Nottingham, this line - build incidentally to international
standards in the late 1800s, could conceivably be reinstated at a fraction
of the cost of HS2.

http://www.dapsites.com/gcr/more/miophist.htm
 
Definitely go for a fusion reactor. The UK could become a leader in a major field again. And I would not build nuclear reactors for the shorter term but Thorium ones.

What I still can't get my head around is how or why govt departments responsible for spending get their sums so wrong......all the time. Worse than bloody useless. The recently announced HS2 cost increases alone should be enough to shelve the idea because I doubt it would stop at £50bn.
 
LesW said:
There are substantial remains of the last main line to be built in England.

With a bit of forethought and some disruption to certain cities such as
Leicester and Nottingham, this line - build incidentally to international
standards in the late 1800s, could conceivably be reinstated at a fraction
of the cost of HS2.

http://www.dapsites.com/gcr/more/miophist.htm
Click to expand...

Interesting point Les.
Though I suspect that putting back the bit of the Great Central which ran through Nottm might prove somewhat fraught now. Irrespective of the fact that the Nottm City section is now completely built over and all the tunnels
filled in, the same practice continued at least as far as the bit that use to pass the end of our street in Bulwell.

A major diversion needed I think.
 
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