Gordon Brown optimistic on economic recovery: Speech to Scottish CBI dinner

Gordon Brown optimistic on economic recovery: Speech to Scottish CBI dinner; So today I set a new ambition to free Britain from the dictatorship of oil. The policies we are putting in place will mean that by 2020 our economy will consume 20 per cent less oil for each unit of output than it consumes today - and only a quarter of the oil we used in 1970. First - investing in more nuclear and renewable sources - with increased support for nuclear supply chain companies and the best and most cost-effective possible arrangements for safety, security, and eventual decommissioning. Already today Westinghouse Electric Company has signed agreements with BAE systems, Rolls Royce and Doosan Babcock to collaborate on work associated with bringing the AP 1000 nuclear power plant to the UK - and may eventually lead to between 70 and 80 per cent of the work and services required to construct the AP 1000 being provided by the UK supply chain, securing valuable jobs in Britain. And our 100 billion pounds investment to increase the proportion of our energy coming from renewable sources to 15 per cent by 2020 - a tenfold increase, is one of the largest increases anywhere in Europe. So British companies must grasp the new opportunities to invest in green technologies and continue to back our planning reforms, because willing the ends also requires willing the means. The question must be not whether to invest in more renewables, but where. Today I can announce the approval of a new offshore windfarm, near Walney Island - off the coast of Barrow-in-Furness. At up to 139 turbines, it will be one of the UK’s largest, providing the equivalent of all the homes in Glasgow and Dundee with clean, green electricity - and helping to give the UK the highest operating offshore wind capacity in the world. And Scotland too is playing a leading role in this green technological revolution - already providing almost half of the UK’s renewable generation capacity. Just south of here, at W...