British nuclear future in crisis

[Darth Tanner]

BBC

There has been a setback to the government's plan to attract investment in new nuclear power stations.

That is after RWE Npower and E.On announced they will not develop new nuclear power projects in the UK.

The two were planning to invest in new plants in Anglesey and Oldbury, near Bristol, under a joint venture called Horizon Nuclear Power.

The government says it is disappointed but there remains "considerable interest" in the project.

The firms blamed problems raising finance for power projects and costs associated with decommissioning nuclear power plants in Germany.

Last May Germany decided to close down its nuclear power stations by 2022, following the disaster at Japan's Fukushima nuclear facility.

Company sources say there is a make-or-break decision to be made towards the end of the year by ministers on nuclear subsidies”

The two German firms formed Horizon Nuclear Power, which is based in Gloucester, in 2009.

It was working on plans for new nuclear power stations at Wylfa on the Isle of Anglesey and at Oldbury-on-Severn in South Gloucestershire.

They are two of eight new projects named by the government to replace the plants - about a quarter of the UK's generating capacity - which are due to close by the end of the decade.

Malcolm Grimston, an associate fellow at the Chatham House think tank, said: "It's a big deal that they are pulling out. If you look at the utilities in Europe then they are two of the biggest. There aren't that many huge players out there who could take over."

RWE and E.On want to find another company, or consortium, to take over the project.

Volker Beckers, chief executive of RWE Npower, said: "We continue to believe that nuclear power has an important role to play in the UK's future energy mix.

"We are therefore looking to ensure that work on development, including grid connection, can be taken up quickly by other potential investors."
Continue reading the main story
“Start Quote

The government must urgently do everything possible to get Project Horizon back on track by finding a buyer to take over the project”

End Quote Kevin Coyne Unite union

Energy Minister Charles Hendry said: "E.On and RWE's withdrawal is clearly very disappointing, but the partners have clearly explained that this decision was based on pressures elsewhere in their businesses and not any doubts about the role of nuclear in the UK's energy future.

"The UK's new nuclear programme is far more than one consortia and there remains considerable interest.

"Plans from EDF/Centrica and Nugen are on track and Horizon's sites offer new players an excellent ready-made opportunity to enter the market," he said.

Welsh Secretary Cheryl Gillan said she had spoken to RWE. "I plan to meet them at the earliest opportunity," she said.

The UK's Nuclear Industry Association said: "We are confident that other investors will emerge to carry on the Horizon project."
Commercially viable?

RWE says it will continue to invest in low carbon technologies. It has also invested £1.6bn in gas-fired power stations in the UK.

The move by the German firms follows the decision last September by Scottish and Southern Energy (SSE) to pull out of a deal to develop a new nuclear power station.

The energy company sold its 25% stake in NuGeneration to partners GDF Suez and Iberdrola.

It said it wanted to focus on renewable energy.

Those moves come as analysts question whether firms can make money out of nuclear power in the UK.

Rhys Kealley, lead analyst at Datamonitor, said "How commercially viable these plants are is very questionable and even Centrica, who are partnered at the moment with EDF in a similar venture, is reluctant to make a commitment and they will be making a final decision on that some time before the end of the year."

The picture may become clearer in May when the government announces its plan to reform the energy market.

Measures will be introduced to encourage investment and create a balanced range of electricity sources.

BBC business editor Robert Peston says sources at the energy companies describe this as "a make-or-break decision" as to whether the government is prepared to abandon its previous position that there won't be any substantial subsidies for nuclear, either from taxpayers or customers.
'Urgent' action needed

Responding to the RWE-E.On announcement, Greenpeace's policy director Doug Parr said: "The government's energy strategy is crumbling.

"Not even the billions of pounds of taxpayers' money they have offered as incentives to the German and French nuclear industry are enough to make a new generation of power stations economically viable."

According to the union, Unite, the proposed nuclear power station at Wylfa could generate 5,000 jobs on Anglesey and support jobs at the Springfields fuel plant in central Lancashire.

Unite national officer Kevin Coyne said: "Britain needs Project Horizon to succeed for the sake of our future energy needs and thousands of skilled jobs which would be created as a result.

"The government must urgently do everything possible to get Project Horizon back on track by finding a buyer to take over the project."

The Prospect union, which represents some of the 120 highly-skilled employees working at Horizon's headquarters in Gloucester, as well as staff at the existing Wylfa site, expressed concern about the broader economic consequences.

"At a time when we face the closure of several large coal-fired power stations between now and the end of 2015, the Horizon venture was to be a major contributor in achieving a new UK fleet of nuclear power stations to provide a secure low-carbon energy supply for the future," said Mike Clancy, general secretary-designate of Prospect.

other news link

The glow of the UK’s nuclear future is looking a little less luminous today, after Horizon Nuclear Power, the German joint-venture between RNE Npower and E.On, decided to pull out of plans to invest in a new power station in Anglesey. Apparently, the financial crisis has made raising finance for projects as big as this too difficult. As well as Anglesey, they’ve also called a halt to a project at Oldbury-on-Severn in South Gloucestershire. Although the company says it’s looking for other investors to take on the project.

The financial crisis might not have been the only thing to put off RWE: it’s recently had to shell out for the decommissioning of its plants in Germany – so that might have caused it to think twice. But CEO Volker Beckers seemed optimistic, all things considered. ‘We continue to believe that nuclear power has an important role to play in the UK’s future energy mix,’ he said. ‘We are therefore looking to ensure that work on development… can be taken up quickly by other potential investors.’ So it doesn’t look as though the UK’s nuclear programme will grind to a halt quite yet.

It’s nevertheless a bit of a setback for climate campaigners, many of whom see nuclear power as the way to make the UK’s energy production greener. Especially as oil has become a tastier prospect, as crude oil prices start to drop, after a meeting between some of the world’s biggest oil buyers laid plans that could lead to Saudi Arabia releasing billions of barrels of oil onto the market. Eric Besson, France’s energy minister, confirmed today the country is in talks with the US, the UK and Japan to bring oil prices down.

Not that that will make much of a difference to those queuing at the pumps, after energy minister Ed Davey told drivers that they might just like to pop down to their local petrol station and top up their tanks, in case tanker drivers go ahead with strike action. Cue utter chaos. Davey’s comment that ‘we don’t think people need to change their behaviour very significantly… [but] people just need to do the sensible thing’ clearly hasn’t been taken quite in the relaxed spirit it was intended.

So the Germans won't be building any of our nuclear sites because the economic climate makes raising the finance too difficult despite all the massive state aid. This leaves state owned EDF as the last real contender for replacing our nuclear capacity and they have made no real plans for actually starting any work so it looks like we won't be seeing any of the planned sites coming on line any time soon. God bless private infrastructure!

[HMS Conqueror]

The private infrastructure will provide the most cost-effective solution: coal and gas.

The problem is rather that the state incentives aimed at reducing carbon emissions are all targeted at useless diffuse renewable systems. If nuclear attracted the same subsidies as wind, the CO2 problem from electricity generation would be almost solved by now.

The other problem is the planning system, but that seems to be a second order issue for nuclear.

[Zaune]

The further the British private-sector and its toxic, Pinto Principle-worshipping management culture stays from the nuclear power industry the better as far as I'm concerned. Look what they did to the bloody railways!

[HMS Conqueror]

None of the companies referenced are British. They are all continental quasi-state cartels. Not that I think that is a big problem here, it isn't.

As for the railways; the first thing the private sector did was build them. But perhaps you mean a more recent offence?

[Starglider]

But perhaps you mean a more recent offence?

Zaune has no actual experience of British Rail; he is mindlessly regurgitating tired union talking points. I can confirm from personal experience that British Rail was thoroughly useless, awful rolling stock and timekeeping, its only virtue was lower cost due to massive subsidy and underinvestment. Furthermore many of the most serious problems with the current railway system are due to cultural hangover from nationalisation.

[Ekiqa]

None of the companies referenced are British. They are all continental quasi-state cartels. Not that I think that is a big problem here, it isn't.

As for the railways; the first thing the private sector did was build them. But perhaps you mean a more recent offence?

To get the true picture of that chart, you need to place car ownership and highway mileage alongside as well. You would see that the decline matches the growth in cars and highways, and that the growth matches the increased congestion on the highways. Privatisation had far less to do with rail usage than you would think.

[HMS Conqueror]

Growth continues to be linear until the recession.

Regardless of causation in either direction, however, the claim was that privatisation coincided with some kind of railway implosion.

[Thanas]

None of the companies referenced are British. They are all continental quasi-state cartels.

Really? Please provide proof of this.

[Zaune]

[Borderline ad hominem comments that I'm not going to dignify with a response redacted.] I can confirm from personal experience that British Rail was thoroughly useless, awful rolling stock and timekeeping, its only virtue was lower cost due to massive subsidy and underinvestment. Furthermore many of the most serious problems with the current railway system are due to cultural hangover from nationalisation.

Perhaps I should have been more specific and pointed to Railtrack, and/or private maintenance contractors like Jarvis, as the shining example of everything that's wrong with private sector thinking in this country. I think the fact that we were forced to take infrastructure maintenance back under direct state control after two fatal accidents in two years caused by sloppy work and poor communication rather speaks for itself.

And of course we also have the most expensive rail fares in Europe; a one-hour commute at peak times would set me back nearly £100 a day. I don't care how much better the timekeeping or the rolling stock may or may not be, a railway network that's only accessible to people who could afford to drive but are too lazy is neither use nor ornament.

[Darth Tanner]

They are all continental quasi-state cartels.

EDF is largely state owned by France, which is pretty much the only reason they’re still interested in building nukes. EON and RWE are completely privately owned as far as I know.

If nuclear attracted the same subsidies as wind, the CO2 problem from electricity generation would be almost solved by now.

Nuclear receives massive subsidy, the problem is it’s a massive investment that won't pay back anything until its complete and even then is still vulnerable to any technical problems, delays or change in government policy ala Germany/Japan shutting them all down. The only plants being built in Europe currently have suffered massive delays and cost overruns, things that blaze a giant ‘don’t build me’ sign to private companies looking to get a financial return.

Renewable on the other hand offer a much more attractive investment, their quicker to build and start paying back much more rapidly with little risk of being shut down by technical problems, protestors scaling your cooling tower or political whim as they can be distributed across the country. It’s clear business sense to invest your limited finance in renewable rather than giant nuclear sites. Obviously though in terms of actual generated electricity for the country that’s not the case.

If the biggest German energy companies can’t gather the finance to build nuclear sites no one is likely to be able to do it unless they’re a government agency which isn’t subject to market forces ala EDF.

Growth continues to be linear until the recession.

Except it starts to slow massively in the late 80’s when train travel starts to pick up again at a rapid pace.

its only virtue was lower cost due to massive subsidy and underinvestment.

Just out of interest I routinely hear the current privatized train company’s get much more subsidiary than the state owned rail ever did. I'm not sure if this is true however considering the government likely takes much of it back in terms of franchise fees but I don’t have any figures.

[HMS Conqueror]

They are all continental quasi-state cartels.

EDF is largely state owned by France, which is pretty much the only reason they’re still interested in building nukes. EON and RWE are completely privately owned as far as I know.

E.ON and RWE are both subsidised by the German government, though they are not as cartelised as the French companies by any means.

If nuclear attracted the same subsidies as wind, the CO2 problem from electricity generation would be almost solved by now.

Nuclear receives massive subsidy, the problem is it’s a massive investment that won't pay back anything until its complete and even then is still vulnerable to any technical problems, delays or change in government policy ala Germany/Japan shutting them all down. The only plants being built in Europe currently have suffered massive delays and cost overruns, things that blaze a giant ‘don’t build me’ sign to private companies looking to get a financial return.

Renewable on the other hand offer a much more attractive investment, their quicker to build and start paying back much more rapidly with little risk of being shut down by technical problems, protestors scaling your cooling tower or political whim as they can be distributed across the country. It’s clear business sense to invest your limited finance in renewable rather than giant nuclear sites. Obviously though in terms of actual generated electricity for the country that’s not the case.

If the biggest German energy companies can’t gather the finance to build nuclear sites no one is likely to be able to do it unless they’re a government agency which isn’t subject to market forces ala EDF.

Nuclear subsidies are only massive in the sense that nuclear is a massive industry. Subsidy per kWh is low.

For instance, the solar industry is complaining because its subsidy is being cut from 43p to 21p per kWh. Total costs of nuclear are around 2-5c per kWh (1-4p). So for 1/10 the cost of ridiculous solar boondoggle per kWh we could near-completely eliminate CO2 production from electricity generation in this country using only proven technology, as the French have done already. Or as another way of looking at it, if nuclear were subsidised to this degree, nuclear operators would be making a >1,000% profit giving the electricity away for free.

Now small investments in diffuse generation that produces hardly any electricity is what you want if you are a political conman trying to make yourself look good on the environment without rocking the boat too much. If you actually want to solve CO2 production you want a BIG investment in BIG powerplants.

Growth continues to be linear until the recession.

Except it starts to slow massively in the late 80’s when train travel starts to pick up again at a rapid pace.

There's no slowing until after 2000, which has no correlation (or anti-correlation) with the rail graph. There is only a blip followed by a temporary trough due to the 1990 recession, which causes no divergence from trend.

I'm arguing about this only because there flatly isn't the relationship you're claiming: even if it did exist, you give no reason to favour your explanation over alternate explanation that people went away from cars to the railways because the privatisation improved quality of service. Your entire argument is question-begging even if it fit the data, which it doesn't.

[Thanas]

They are all continental quasi-state cartels.

EDF is largely state owned by France, which is pretty much the only reason they’re still interested in building nukes. EON and RWE are completely privately owned as far as I know.

E.ON and RWE are both subsidised by the German government, though they are not as cartelised as the French companies by any means.

Nice backpedal. Still, please provide sources for the assertions with regards to EON and RWE, as well as the degree to which they are cartelised.

[HMS Conqueror]

I'm not sure what you are asking. Utilities are cartels in most (all?) countries, mainly due to licensing requirements. Even in countries with a lot of individual utility companies, like the US, licensing arrangements usually give them local monopolies.

So is your claim that they are in fact British, or what?

[Pendleton]

Nuclear was only ever going to be a stop gap solution anyway. You cannot run the world on nukes, so why not carry on as Germany has, and invest in renewables of the solar, wind, tidal etc. nature?

[Darth Tanner]

Nuclear was only ever going to be a stop gap solution anyway. You cannot run the world on nukes, so why not carry on as Germany has, and invest in renewables of the solar, wind, tidal etc. nature?

I think you've got that the wrong way round, you can’t run the world on renewables but you can with nuclear power, as France indeed largely does. Germany runs on coal and gas despite an incredibly successful renewable program. (Although if Germany can actually meets its 80% renewable target I'll and eat my portion of humble pie)

E.ON and RWE are both subsidised by the German government

Evidence of this?

Now small investments in diffuse generation that produces hardly any electricity is what you want if you are a political conman trying to make yourself look good on the environment without rocking the boat too much. If you actually want to solve CO2 production you want a BIG investment in BIG powerplants

Big risk and big capital investment too, both of which are toxic to private investment. Nuclear plants are orders of magnitude bigger investment than solar panels or wind turbines, neither of which bring all the technical and political risks of nuclear. Cost benefits of nuclear almost always ignore the cost of capital investment since it’s a massive disadvantage for nuclear sites.

Olkilouto 3 for example is already "at least three and a half years behind schedule and more than 50 percent over-budget." That sort of thing is a huge risk to any investment, indeed the companies behind it are at risk of going under. Meanwhile in Nuclear experienced France Flamanville has doubled in price to 6 billion Euros and is still 4 years late. Would you invest in a nuclear project with these sort of examples going on right now?

And you don't seem to understand the difference in the scale of the industry. Solar has had a huge subsidy lately, but this has largely been to establish the industry which is itself tiny. If nuclear had a similar subsidy it would be costing over £27 billion a year and that’s just at current generation levels.

There's no slowing until after 2000

I can see the graph. Growth sharply stops in the late 80s until mid 90s then what growth there is is much slower than previously.

[Aaron MkII]

What are Germany's NIMBY's like?

We can't get windmills without a massive bitchfest.

[HMS Conqueror]

Nuclear was only ever going to be a stop gap solution anyway. You cannot run the world on nukes, so why not carry on as Germany has, and invest in renewables of the solar, wind, tidal etc. nature?

Because they're shit. They cost multiple times as much for no additional advantage on climate change. There also is currently no good plan to deal with intermittency, so they will in reality continue to be backed with fossil fuel load-matching.

Germany's plan is to build a lot of coal plants.

Big risk and big capital investment too, both of which are toxic to private investment. Nuclear plants are orders of magnitude bigger investment than solar panels or wind turbines, neither of which bring all the technical and political risks of nuclear. Cost benefits of nuclear almost always ignore the cost of capital investment since it’s a massive disadvantage for nuclear sites.

Olkilouto 3 for example is already "at least three and a half years behind schedule and more than 50 percent over-budget." That sort of thing is a huge risk to any investment, indeed the companies behind it are at risk of going under. Meanwhile in Nuclear experienced France Flamanville has doubled in price to 6 billion Euros and is still 4 years late. Would you invest in a nuclear project with these sort of examples going on right now?

And you don't seem to understand the difference in the scale of the industry. Solar has had a huge subsidy lately, but this has largely been to establish the industry which is itself tiny. If nuclear had a similar subsidy it would be costing over £27 billion a year and that’s just at current generation levels.

Oh it's all too expensive and too hard! Let's sit and wait for death.

Nuclear is not economically viable vs coal, at least if you don't count CO2 externality. That's it. That's the only reason companies aren't interested. Renewables are subsidised to make them artificially viable vs coal, because reducing CO2 is considered worth the cost. Nuclear is the most cost efficient way to reduce CO emissions! It's also the only one that has ever been successful eliminating CO2 from a significant fraction of an industrial economy.

You are not realising that the solar subsidy is fucking insane. For 1/10 the solar subsidy, nuclear generators could give their electricity away for free and still make a profit. What we're really talking about is a 10-20% cost premium over coal, not an absurd multiple-fold increase in the cost of electricity, that would put it out of reach of all but the middle and upper middle class.

I can see the graph. Growth sharply stops in the late 80s until mid 90s then what growth there is is much slower than previously.

It slows only after previously growing much above trend. Then it returns to trend. Did you see the red line I drew?

Also ignored other point that holes your argument either way.

[HMS Conqueror]

"Cost benefits of nuclear almost always ignore the cost of capital investment since it’s a massive disadvantage for nuclear sites."

Missed this: wtf?! Provide one such cost estimate. Without capital costs, nuclear would be like 0.2p/kWh.

[Darth Tanner]

There also is currently no good plan to deal with intermittency

Actually as I have discussed with Thanas in an earlier thread Germany has dealt with intermittency on a small test scale and was able to keep the lights on with just renewables. Obviously scaling that will pose problems but it is possible.

Missed this: wtf?! Provide one such cost estimate. Without capital costs, nuclear would be like 0.2p/kWh.

http://world-nuclear.org/info/inf02.html

the above data refer to fuel plus operation and maintenance costs only, they exclude capital, since this varies greatly among utilities and states, as well as with the age of the plant.

Oh it's all too expensive and too hard! Let's sit and wait for death.

You can sit and whine about how the world won't conform to your view but you have not addressed where this capital investment is going to come from, private industry has clearly said it’s not able/willing to do it and the state isn't either.

I'd love a full set of latest generation nuclear sites to be powering my country. It would massively cut our co2 and energy bills too but the point is it’s not happening in 'reality'. We have to deal with that rather than our dream world where everyone is rational and decides to take the long term view.

You are not realising that the solar subsidy is fucking insane.

I fully realise how overly generous it is, it is after all kick starting an industry and as it has just done that is being cut in half. Thinking it could be expanded to subsidise nuclear at that rate is false when the sheer scale difference would cost a fortune.

Also ignored other point that holes your argument either way.

I think your confusing me with other posters, I simply pointed out that growth stops then slows after the late 80s which is true, growth in the 20 years after 1988 is around 50million compared to 120million before it. I can't see a red line graph, likely as I'm viewing this through my work terminal though all the other charts are showing.

[Aharon]

It may be considered settled on this board (because the discussion has been going on for a while, and nobody mentioned it yet), but shouldn't safety and waste storage also be an issue when discussing nuclear power? I'm fully aware that in principle, if all regulations are kept in mind and all precautions are taken, it should be safe enough, but in reality, this doesn't seem to happen.

So maybe nuclear energy has the better price/kWh, but is that worth the consequences of serious accidents? There are no definite numbers yet on how much Fukushima will cost, and estimates vary wildly, but Belarus, has estimated the losses induced by Chernobyl from 1986 to 2006 over 30 years at 235 billion 2005 US$ (http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Bookle ... rnobyl.pdf, footnote on page 33).

[HMS Conqueror]

There also is currently no good plan to deal with intermittency

Actually as I have discussed with Thanas in an earlier thread Germany has dealt with intermittency on a small test scale and was able to keep the lights on with just renewables. Obviously scaling that will pose problems but it is possible.

I'd be intrigued to read what this solution is.

Missed this: wtf?! Provide one such cost estimate. Without capital costs, nuclear would be like 0.2p/kWh.

http://world-nuclear.org/info/inf02.html

the above data refer to fuel plus operation and maintenance costs only, they exclude capital, since this varies greatly among utilities and states, as well as with the age of the plant.

[/quote]
http://www.scribd.com/doc/19051979/ElecCost - scroll to page 45; this is where my cost estimates come from.

Although I was wrong, the non-capital is more like 1p than 0.2p, and I am sorry to imply no one would be stupid enough to list only fuel and O&M, clearly World Nuclear is (and wrongly, it seems).

Oh it's all too expensive and too hard! Let's sit and wait for death.

You can sit and whine about how the world won't conform to your view but you have not addressed where this capital investment is going to come from, private industry has clearly said it’s not able/willing to do it and the state isn't either.

I'd love a full set of latest generation nuclear sites to be powering my country. It would massively cut our co2 and energy bills too but the point is it’s not happening in 'reality'. We have to deal with that rather than our dream world where everyone is rational and decides to take the long term view.

From the bond markets; same place the government debt comes from.

For the rest, idk what you are even arguing. Seemingly that, because no effective plan currently exists to reduce CO2 emissions, no one should support implementing one that could. But that seems too dumb for anyone to advocate.

You are not realising that the solar subsidy is fucking insane.

I fully realise how overly generous it is, it is after all kick starting an industry and as it has just done that is being cut in half. Thinking it could be expanded to subsidise nuclear at that rate is false when the sheer scale difference would cost a fortune.

Lulz. When the solar subsidy is removed the solar industry will just implode again, like it did in Spain. It's not some kind of initial investment that pays back, solar is inherently that expensive.

And yet again you sail right past the point, which is what nowhere near that sort of subsidy would be required to make nuclear appealing to private investors.

Also ignored other point that holes your argument either way.

I think your confusing me with other posters, I simply pointed out that growth stops then slows after the late 80s which is true, growth in the 20 years after 1988 is around 50million compared to 120million before it. I can't see a red line graph, likely as I'm viewing this through my work terminal though all the other charts are showing.

Because the linear growth ends in like 2002. Which has no correlation to what is going on in the rail graph.

[Sky Captain]

Wouldn't there be less trouble with financing if smaller, cheaper faster to deploy reactor models were available? Currently available reactors take something like 5 - 8 years to build and cost several billion apiece. That scares away private investors because it is difficult for companies to scrape together that much money for a project that will start to make profit maybe 20 years later. If reactors that cost say 200 million and generate 100 MW and take 1 - 2 years to build were available it would be much easier for utility companies to afford them.

[Thanas]

I'm not sure what you are asking. Utilities are cartels in most (all?) countries, mainly due to licensing requirements. Even in countries with a lot of individual utility companies, like the US, licensing arrangements usually give them local monopolies.

No, how about you actually prove your claim that these are state-run/owned cartels? All of it.

[HMS Conqueror]

'Quasi-state' - they operate in an industry with artificial barriers to entry and are state subsidised. Overtly nationalised utilities are no longer permitted under EU competition law, although the French make their best efforts to evade this.

Wouldn't there be less trouble with financing if smaller, cheaper faster to deploy reactor models were available? Currently available reactors take something like 5 - 8 years to build and cost several billion apiece. That scares away private investors because it is difficult for companies to scrape together that much money for a project that will start to make profit maybe 20 years later. If reactors that cost say 200 million and generate 100 MW and take 1 - 2 years to build were available it would be much easier for utility companies to afford them.

EDF with its 65bn EUro revenue and 240bn EUro assets doesn't have any trouble "scraping together" billions for capital investments; the cost vs benefit is all the matters, and without some mechanism to account for CO2 externalities nuclear is just a bit worse than coal and gas.

[Thanas]

'Quasi-state' - they operate in an industry with artificial barriers to entry and are state subsidised. Overtly nationalised utilities are no longer permitted under EU competition law, although the French make their best efforts to evade this.

Do you consider restating your opinion in oh so many words to be proof?

Now put up.