Canadian start-up General Fusion, a nuclear fusion firm backed by Jeff Bezos, has announced plans to build a £300 million pilot power plant outside London by 2025, with construction expected to begin next year. Potentially creating vast amounts of waste-free energy by the middle of the decade.
The project, which received an undisclosed amount of funding from Whitehall, will be “a huge boost for [the government’s] plans to develop a fusion industry,” according to UK Science Minister Amanda Solloway, who added “fusion energy has great potential as a source of limitless, low-carbon energy.” Just as well, because the government pledged a whopping £12 billion in funding for green tech last year…
That said, General Fusion will still need to raise more cash to fund the project: company CEO Chris Mowry claims that although the government’s support was “very meaningful”, at some point they’re “going to go public” to bring in the necessary investment. Guido hears Bezos still has deep pockets…
England’s lockdown is to partially follow the barmy Welsh rule of cordoning off non-essential items, fast moving consumer goods industry publication The Grocer reports. Unlike in Wales, the Government’s plans are reportedly to cordon non-essential areas, rather than specific goods. Which is still bonkers, directing cash away from the high street and towards Jeff Bezos.
One source involved in the talks told The Grocer:
“The government have said that they are not going to force retailers to shut down all non-essential goods, like happened in Wales. However, those stores which have specific areas of so-called non-essential goods will have to cordon them off. They will not have to close off aisles where there is a mix.”
The Welsh Tories rightly harshly criticised the Labour administration in Cardiff for cordoning off ‘non-essential’ items and the confusion that caused. Now the Westminster Tories look set to repeat some of the same mistakes…
UPDATE: The Government has stringently denied the industry report, with a spokesperson telling Guido “These claims are false. Items will not be cordoned off.”
Oxfam this morning launches an attack on eight billionaires whose wealth they label “grotesque“, claiming this “super-rich elite are able to prosper at the expense of the rest of us“. Guido has done some cursory digging and found that the eight billionaires lambasted by Oxfam have made at least $60 billion in charitable donations. By contrast Oxfam spends around £300 million a year on charitable causes. It would take more than 150 years for Oxfam to raise as much for charity as the eight billionaires they condemn today.
- Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft: More than $27 billion dollars in charitable donations, some 48% of his net worth, saving some 6 million lives fighting malaria and polio.
- Amancio Ortega, founder of Inditex: More than $95 million in charitable donations.
- Warren Buffett, CEO, Berkshire Hathaway: More than $21.5 billion in charitable donations.
- Carlos Slim Helu, owner of Grupo Carso: More than $4 billion dollars in charitable donations.
- Jeff Bezos, founder, Amazon: More than $25 million dollars in charitable donations, invests hundreds of millions in not-for-profit ventures.
- Mark Zuckerberg, co-founder of Facebook: More than $1.6 billion in charitable donations.
- Larry Ellison, co-founder, Oracle: More than $564 million dollars in charitable donations.
- Michael Bloomberg, founder, Bloomberg LP: More than $4.22 billion dollars in charitable donations.
Sources: The Independent, Forbes, WealthX
Once again it falls to Guido to point out the wholesale transfer of political operatives to the charity sector is backfiring. In 2014 the Charity Commission found Oxfam guilty of failing to maintain their political neutrality over their anti-Tory electioneering. Oxfam’s policy director Richard Pyle is a Labour supporter whose Facebook likes include LGBT Labour and a string of Labour candidates, MPs and MEPs. Oxfam’s treasurer David Pitt-Watson was Labour’s Finance Director for two years and was even appointed General Secretary of the party. The Red Cross secured a week of anti-Tory headlines with its overblown claims that the NHS is experiencing a “humanitarian crisis”, its new head of media is the left-wing former Guardian journalist Polly Curtis. Today’s Oxfam report effectively endorses Jeremy Corbyn’s new policy position, slamming pay ratios at FTSE 100 companies. People aren’t taking the naked political spin of the Labour-centric third sector seriously. It says it all that the best media hit Oxfam had today was the front page splash on the communist Morning Star…
The url for the Telegraph’s interview with the founder and CEO of Amazon Jeff Bezos contains an unfortunate error. It misspells his name Bozos…
Webster’s Dictionary
bozo: a stupid or foolish person
A mosaic of information, as Sir Brian Henry Leveson might say…
