It's one mishap after another at British Energy. Being bailed out by the state four years ago should have been a galvanising experience, but to judge by a string of profit and revenue warnings over the past year, the nuclear power generator's operational problems remain as acute as ever.

The bull case for British Energy has long been in the idea that efficiency in the group's eight nuclear power stations could eventually be improved to something close to the best practice achieved in the US and France. This may always have been impossible in a company which has suffered years of under-investment and whose gas-cooled reactors are now an obsolete technology.

Yet the theory was reasonable enough. Nuclear power plants have high operational gearing; their running costs are big whether they are generating electricity or not. The less time spent in outages, the more money they make. Despite its best efforts, management has failed to deliver on its promises of enhanced productivity.

The news yesterday was that repair work for cracked pipes at two of the company's AGRs will now take until next March to complete. Previously, British Energy had hoped to have the plants fully operational again by this month. Once more the company has proved overly optimistic. It's become a familiar pattern, leading many investors and analysts to despair of the comp-any's ability ever to meet its targets, let alone surprise on the upside.

The Government had hoped by now to have offloaded the 65 per cent stake it acquired in British Energy in return for taking [pound]5bn of decommissioning costs off the company's hands.

At the time the sell-off plan was hatched, the amount the Government could have raised would have virtually matched these liabilities, obviating the need for any further calls on the taxpayer. Not any more. The Government missed its chance. Persistent outages make it hard to sell the holding at all, let alone get a worthwhile price for it. They also provide a deeply negative backdrop to government hopes of persuading the private sector to finance a new generation of nuclear power plants.

I've long thought the best solution to British Energy's problems would be to sell the company outright to Electricite de France which, given the chance, would be keen to buy. EdF also has the expertise and financial muscle necessary to embark on a programme of new nuclear building without recourse to government subsidy.

Yet though everything else in Britain appears to be for sale, ministers would likely draw the line at British Energy. Think of the headlines in the Daily Mail if Britain's nuclear future, albeit only the civil one, were surrendered to the French. For the time being, British Energy must hobble along as best it can, outages and all.