When not indulging in schoolboy fantasies that they’re a bunch of James Bonds and spying on environmental groups across Europe, French energy giant like to indulge in other fantasies. Like stating they 'could' have a new UK nuclear power plant in operation by 2017.

‘It is possible and highly desirable to have new nuclear power stations in operation by the end of 2017,’ said EDF chief executive Vincent de Rivaz. A lot of things are possible and highly desirable but they aren’t very likely. It’s possible and highly desirable that our phone might ring in a second and it’ll be Brad and Angelina asking us to go party with them at Cannes. Likely? Not so much.

‘Rivaz said that he would shift resources to the UK from its Flamanville 3 nuclear reactor construction site in France when work finished.’ Flamanville 3 is of the so-called state of the art third generation EPR design. It’s already woefully behind schedule and the partners in the project have disagreed about when it will actually be ready.

So, even if EDF can get Flamanville completed by 2012/13, can they be expected to get another project of similar complexity completed in five years? They’ll get the thing built without the delays, overspend and incompetence we’ve seen of late? We’re certainly not taking that bet.

Rivaz’s statement also shows us another another fantasy – that of UK prime minister Gordon Brown’s assertion that a British nuclear ‘renaissance’ could create tens of thousands of jobs. We’ve been sceptical about that for a while now and now here’s the proof: Rivaz says ‘he would shift resources’ to the UK from Flamanville 3 when work finished. Are EDF really going to train thousands of British workers? It’s possible but will EDF find it highly desirable?