Hinkley Point power station makes no sense on so many levels

Chinese-funded nuclear power station will cost customers dear and could be delayed by years - but what do David Cameron and George Osborne care?

In a rational world, the concerns of the UK intelligence agencies would kill the idea of Chinese state involvement in our nuclear power stations. Here, we will stick to a financial appraisal of Hinkley Point. The answer is the same: the project makes no sense.

After 30 years of stop-start policymaking in Westminster, energy generation involves necessary compromises between three competing goals - cleanliness, cost and reliability. Hinkley will achieve one of those ambitions - nuclear is clean in the sense that it produces little carbon - but it fails the other two tests by absurdly wide margins.