I’d imagine the chances of the Eurofighter partners pissing off China to be zero. Unfortunately for the Republic of China/Taiwan, the Peoples Republic is now an aweful lot more lucrative to outside investors and politicians so people aren’t in a hurry to upset them.

The NATO home page has a good summary of their deployment in Afghanistan which shows it is a lot more than a US/UK operation, a lot of the UK reporting seems to report the NATO force as if it was just a British force which is absolutely not the case.
This was a tragic loss and very sad for all concerned, but at the same time a Nimrod could be lost on a training flight from Kinloss, so I think it unfair to just blame the Afghan campaign for this Nimrod crash, tragic though it is.

Believe me, I do not want to see the CVF program cut as I think they are badly needed if the RN hopes to maintain an expeditionary capability and fulfill it’s committments. However, the RN also needs more Type 45’s and a future frigate replacement if the two CVF’s are to be of any real use, and the RAF and RN also need enough F35’s to provide two air groups and still maintain a war maintenance and training reserve, plus whatever the RAF needs for it’s own purposes. Also, it seems to have gone quiet on the AEW capability, are they going for another cheap skate solution like the Sea King AEW? Now don’t get me wrong, the Sea King has filled a gap and been a lot better in the role than I ever imagined, but if they’re building 60,000T carriers with a service life of 50 years, why economise on such a vital component as organic airborne early warning and command and control? So far, the new equipment budget is already under pressure, add in the cost of open ended hot committments in Iraq and Afghanistan, a lot of equipment purchases that they have no choice but to provide for the army that are eating into the equipment budget and a government budget that is already under massive pressure (how many politicians do people here think are going to stand up and demand money for the CVF program whilst hospitals are closing, nurses being made redundant etc?) and I’ll be amazed if we don’t see defence cuts.

The waste issue is hugely over blown IMO, it is a problem no doubt, but geologically stable deep storage is a safe and effective answer, and the volume in question is small. The protestors always quote the amount of waste in weight which due to the excessive specific density of much nuclear material makes the quantity seem huge, but in volume terms it’s small. I see the UK’s really hot waste regularly and it’s contained in the equivalent of a couple of Olympic sized pools, hardly a mountain for over 50 years of nuclear activity. The other thing is that waste is not just a problem for the nuclear power sector, most waste actually comes from other sources, especially the medical sector, and I don’t see protestors demanding an end to medical radiography. Not many realise the most dangerous incident involving nuclear waste in the UK for many many years was actually caused by a medical scanning unit being moved for decommissioning.

Only partly true, don’t forget the F35 will also be an RAF aircraft and they themselves want the F35 badly. There are also rumours about helicopter, Eurofighter and transport numbers too if the government budget targets defence again as the easiest department to take cuts. Another factor is that the army needs quite a bit of emergency funding related to Afghanistan and Iraq, new APC’s and vehicles and personal equipment etc. which is eating into the new equipment budget.

The problem is it’s not just the escort vessels, it’s the air group. Now some reports indicate the UK JSF buy will be around 80 aircraft, which means that the RAF/FAA will probably not be able to deploy two full air groups unless the intended air group is reduced significantly.

Not as simple as that, wind power capacity is in effect excess capacity as you still need a reliable base capacity to cover for wind powers unreliability, and coal fired stations can not just be switched on and off according to wind conditions. From a financial and security of supply perspective wind seems the worst of all the options.