THE nightmare haunting all governments is the nation's lights going out while they're in charge, but rather than plan accordingly they often leave it worryingly late, so risking a repeat of the seventies UK problem – the four day working week, evening black outs and shops running out of candles.

Since then our modern complex societies have become even more dependent on electricity, with transport increasingly being so powered, and much of our food supply requiring refrigeration. Just imagine a few days without recharged mobile phones or access to the internet and many railways, let alone all street lighting, traffic lights, petrol pumps, television, radio, cash points, air traffic control, and industries closed, as well as curly hair everywhere as the straighteners won't work!

There's a strong case for ensuring that the government has control over the electricity production so that they can plan ahead, but because of the capital involved its tempting to allow the private sector to determine the investment and, of course, it has a different priority, profit, as the 2002 Californian blackouts demonstrated.

This change happened in the UK in 1989, though many parts of Europe, including France, Denmark and Sweden have stayed mainly with state provision of the production and distribution of their electricity. They may well be in a stronger position to plan ahead than those countries that have a privatised market approach.

The UK is likely to face power cuts in the next decade as more ageing coal fired power stations are closed following five later this year, and the twenty year delay in replacing the current nuclear power stations is irresponsible, as is the design they have now decided on – the European Pressurised Reactor,

Not only will it be financed by the French and Chinese nationalised power companies, but the two EPRs currently being built, in France and Finland, are years behind schedule, and the cost is eye watering. Hinkley C, in Somerset, could be a staggering £30 billion, and the future price for the power is guaranteed for 35 years, and higher than any other technology. It will also be late.

So it's candles again, and a hope that the government relents on its opposition to wind power, but this is unlikely as they have come up with a CO2 intensive stopgap – diesel farms, using one of the most polluting fossil fuels available.

These are small generating units, less than 50MW, that can be switched on in less than 45 seconds to meet a sudden surge in demand, and they have 15 year contracts with the National Grid. They are hidden around the country, and will add quite unnecessary volumes of CO2 to the atmosphere.