Analysts have been puzzling over why the industry should be collapsing so quickly. But the question we should surely be asking is how it has survived so long. Nuclear power has never been viable. Gas costs 2p and wind power 3p. The nuclear industry has been sustained only by government subsidies and opaque accounting.
Nuclear power is also the world's most dangerous business.
If Sellafield's antiquated liquid waste tanks were to blow, they would release as much radiation as 10 Chernobyls. Britain has already accumulated enough nuclear waste to build 5,000 atom bombs. Reprocessing, upon which the industry now relies to justify its existence, increases both the quantity of bomb-grade plutonium and the opportunities for stealing it. The children of women who have worked in nuclear installations, according to a study by the National Radiological Protection Board, are 11 times more likely to contract cancer than the children of workers in non-radioactive industries. You can tell how close to Sellafield children live by the amount of plutonium in their teeth.