New energy policy: Winds of change, or just hot air?
The painful planning procedures in England and Wales have done little to facilitate the building of offshore wind farms
A LITTLE over 8km north east of Llandudno, in the choppy waters of the Irish Sea, the future of Welsh energy security rises imposingly from Liverpool Bay. The 90 megawatt Rhyl Flats offshore wind farm, commissioned last year, generates enough electricity to power 60,000 homes. It is the largest such installation off the Welsh coast, and the second largest in the UK.
It is a symbol of progress towards Wales’s – and the UK’s – aspirations of energy security, with low-carbon power generation forming the backbone of the plan – although the term ‘progress’ is one that, in terms of the debate over its definition, remains as wide open as the seas that surround the 25 turbines of Rhyl Flats.
According to data from National Grid, on January 7 this year, wind power generation accounted for just 0.2% of the UK’s combined electricity consumption. Fossil fuels – gas and coal in the case of the UK, which rarely relies on oil-fired power plants – accounted for a mammoth 82%, with nuclear filling the lion’s share of the gap at 16%. Pumped storage and hydropower made up the remainder.
This is grim reading for a nation that has proclaimed lofty aspirations to the rest of the world concerning its renewable energy goals, as the UK has done. The goal for the UK as a whole under its commitment to the EU is to produce 15% of its final energy consumption from renewable sources by 2020. This will help the EU along the road to its much vaunted combined target of 20% by 2020.
Wales’s target, as set out in the Welsh Assembly’s Renewable Energy Route Map published in 2008, is to become self-sufficient with renewable electricity generation within 20 years – or 100% by 2028.
“Wales could produce some 33 terawatt hours per year of electricity from renewable sources, with about a half of this from marine, a third from wind and the rest mainly from sustainable biomass, including indigenous and imported material,” the document said. “Wales current electricity consumption is around 24 terawatt hours per year.”
When held up to the current record of many other European countries, the UK lags alarmingly behind. Denmark already produces some 30% of its consumed power from wind farms. Gas-rich Norway produces a mammoth 99% of its consumed power from hydro generation.
Admittedly, these are countries with a relatively small population when compared to the UK‘s 61 million people; but in Germany, with its 82 million inhabitants, renewable power generation accounts for around 7% of consumed energy.
In short, on our shared island off the coast of western Europe, with its natural coastline, wind and hydro resources, we have climbed to the top of the tallest mountain to shout about our good intentions; it’s a shame we did not consider building a turbine while we were up there. The winds of change, however, may finally be picking up.
Offshore wind
So why this glacial rate of – ahem – progress towards our much trumpeted goals? The painful planning procedures in England and Wales have done little to facilitate matters – and in some cases central government has taken the bull by the horns in order to bypass local concerns.
The UK’s Department of Energy and Climate Change is in the process of constructing an immense series of at least 27 off-shore wind farms in seas managed by The Crown Estates, to be built in three rounds. Four of the initial 27 farms, including the already complete Rhyl Flats, will be off the north coast of Wales. The combined generation capacity of the 27 farms will be in the vicinity of 33 gigawatts. That’s enough clean electricity to power approximately 22 million of the UK’s 26 million households.
The giant Gwynt y Môr farm, 10 miles off Llandudno, forms part of the second round of the Crown Estates scheme. However, the project had barely been announced when plans for a legal challenge were hatched by Conwy Council on the grounds that the turbines would ruin the scenic coastline.
Calls went out for a public inquiry based on the sheer size of the 250-turbine farm. But the challenge was dropped in January 2009 once it became clear that the will of the government would push the project through regardless.
“This decision was taken by one man sitting in an office in London who never visited the site,” Coun Phil Edwards told local press, with more than an air of bitterness about him. “That is why this is such a scandal.”
Coun Janet Saunders, however, spoke more succinctly: “It is wrong that because this was off the coast we were not the planning authority despite the impact it will have on the county and this is something we want to change in the future,” she said.
Despite this fact, the implication remains: Had Conwy Council been the planning authority, Gwynt y Môr would never have got off the seabed, and enough carbon free power to feed half a million Welsh homes would have disappeared beneath the Irish Sea before it had even materialised. In some cases, what needs to be done, needs to be done. Simple. And surely, renewable energy security is good for Wales; and what’s good for Wales – is good for Conwy Council.
Energy security
The need to acquire renewable energy security is not a drive reserved for the realm of the tree-hugger. Geo-political concerns rank alongside the obvious environmental need for a low-carbon power generation sector.
In January 2009, no less than 18 European countries reporting major falls or cut-offs of their gas supplies from Russia, transported via Ukraine, following a very public spat between the two countries.
And nobody needs reminding of the geo-political consequences on the global stage of combining a nationalist leader; a paranoid country; an aggressive foreign policy; and long-term fears over oil supplies. Energy security is swiftly becoming our generation’s communism: a reason – albeit in this case a covert one – to go to war. And Iraq stands in the minds of many as testament to this.
To bring things closer to home, 2,700 miles north east of the deserts surrounding Baghdad, lie the somewhat more amiable surroundings of Barry. The Welsh town is approximately 15 miles from Scarweather Sands – set to replace Rhyl Flats as Wales largest wind farm, before itself being dwarfed by Gwynt y Môr. The 30-turbine wind farm will have the potential to produce 108MW of power, upon completion becoming the largest in Wales. The farm will be built – local objections, or no objections. And another step will be taken towards Welsh energy security.
Tidal power
So the future of Welsh renewable energy independence may indeed lie somewhere between the seabed and the sky, but others believe that the ocean itself holds the key.
Wales ambitious 2008 Renewable Energy Route Map said that, of the 33 terawatt hours of electricity that could be produced, “about a half of this” could come from marine generation, otherwise known as tidal power.
In February 2008 plans were unveiled by Marine Current Turbines (MCT) for one of the world’s first tidal power farms, two miles off the coast of Anglesey, and seven miles north of Holyhead. The scheme would, if successful, generate enough electricity from the 25 metre deep waters of The Skerries to power 6,000 homes.
MCT applied for a consent application last year. Again, the pitfalls of the planning process sound ominous: “Construction and commissioning timescales will be subject to the length of the planning process, but it is anticipated this could take place between 2011 and 2012,” the firm said. That’s two to three years from time to application before consent can even be granted.
Tidal energy remains in its infancy somewhat, though purveyors believe the potential to be huge – if only they could go ahead and build the things. In this case however, the lack of any monolithic structures to spoil the scenic views off the Welsh coast should prevent even the most ardent Nimby from finding cause to complain. At least MCT will be hoping so.
The balance of power
The aspirations of Wales towards renewable energy independence are ambitious. But along with great aspiration, particularly in the field of energy, so often comes great cost. And the financial crisis has done very little to facilitate such goals.
One of the biggest problems facing the wider energy sector today has barely been discussed by the media. The energy consumption of power intensive industry was dilapidated by the financial crisis, as demand for commodities fell off a cliff. Energy companies large and small were forced to cut plans for power generation projects, knowing that such schemes would only remain profitable if supply remained balanced with demand. Not to mention the fact that many energy firms were themselves feeling the pinch.
Now, as the global economy emerges from the tail-end of recession, energy consumption is beginning to tick back up again. The plans of suppliers for new generation projects, however, remain burdened by the recession. How to construct a network of on-shore wind farms, off-shore wind farms, tidal energy plants, and hydro-power projects to meet a resurgence in demand, when the piggy bank is all but bare?
EU support
Enter the EU. In September 2009, the European Investment Bank announced a £270 million loan towards a mammoth project to build a 160 mile, £560 million cable connecting the power grids of Wales and Ireland, the latter itself being a potential green energy powerhouse, along the bottom of the Irish Sea. The scheme will allow the two counties to ‘share’ power, so improving security of supply.
The loan fell under the EU Economic Recovery Package, which was launched in the depths of the recession to get the EU member countries back on their feet through stimulating growth in key ‘engine room’ sectors such as energy, construction and manufacturing. A further £100 million grant was provided by the EU. The recession may, therefore, have led to investment in Welsh infrastructure and renewable energy security that may otherwise not have been forthcoming.
Investor sentiment may also have been realigned by the crisis, with people now less willing to pump their hard-earned cash into unethical schemes. Previously attractive sectors – financial services to name but one – are far less likely to attract post-recession money, for obvious reasons. Just ask any pre-crisis major RBS shareholder.
Yet the shift was not necessarily evident in 2009, when just 1% of the UK’s investment landscape was made up of cash that had been targeted at companies that contributed to the environment, human welfare and sustainability – known as “ethical investment” –according to The Co-operative Investments research arm.
But there are positive signs. Further research published by the group a fortnight ago revealed that 18% more people intend to invest ethically this year. “It is further evidence that the financial crisis will lead to a growth in green investment,” the group added hopefully, revealing that its own ethical fund grew by around 18% through 2008 and 2009.
The winds of change should soon be blowing off the coast of Wales, bringing with them green-tech employment, energy security, and a huge step towards carbon-free power generation. But a series of spanners continue to populate the works, in the form of planning pitfalls, pockets of local opposition, and the small matter of the financial crisis – each has the potential to derail Welsh ambitions, unless a solution can be found.
But progress is being made. Only last week, on 8 January, the successful bidders for development of round 3 of the UK’s offshore wind scheme were announced. A number of sites will be built in the Irish Sea zone by energy giant Centrica. The zone has the potential to supply power to no less than three million homes.
Central government would appear to agree with the National Assembly: Wales is blessed with the natural resources to achieve its 2028 target. Indeed, the plan was based around, and dictated by, those very resources. But if Wales is to mount a realistic push towards absolute renewable energy security within two decades, the winds of change may need to gust a little stronger to bypass the barriers to progress.
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A really interesting piece that demonstrates the difficulties involved in radically changing the way in which we produce energy. I find it quite remarkable that such an important set of projects are so easily stalled. I’m particularly astounded by the short-sightedness of local councils and planning officials.
“It is a symbol of progress towards Wales’s – and the UK’s – aspirations of energy security, with low-carbon power generation forming the backbone of the plan…”
The drive towards the low carbon economy is crucial for the UK as a whole, and particualrly for Wales, from the perspective of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, achieving greater energy security and, not least, acting as a driver of new innovation and technology which will create “green” jobs in research, development and manufacturing.
Electricity capacity in the UK would fall away by over a third in the next decade if the government had not taken the decisive step of replacing the retiring nuclear plants with a new generation, and looking for alternatives to fill the gap which will be created by coal plants forced to close down under the EU Large Combustion Plant Directive.
Both nuclear and coal have provided a significant floor in the form of a reliable, predictable and secure baseload supply of electricity, and now there is a major expansion of alternatives initially with wind, though we need to remember that this form of energy has obvioius intermediation problems.
Looking further ahead I welcome the progress made by MCT off Anglesey, and we can already see how successful their tidal turbine technology is with the units already commissioned at Strangford Lough and generating electricity for the Northern Ireland grid. With tidal there is higher efficiency given the predictable nature of the tides compared to the variation in wind speeds affecting wind turbine farms.
With regard to annual electricity output in Wales, the article refers to current demand of around 23 Terawatt hours per year, with an aspiration for 33 Terawatt hours per year, and for Wales to achieve energy self-sufficiency from renewables within 20 or so years.
I think it is better to see the contribution from all energy sources cited in Wales as contributing to a UK genreating capacity target, as this allows us to take a strategic approach to meeting future energy security and consumption patterns, which are met through an integrated National Grid network.
Just consider that the current Wylfa nuclear power station on Anglesey, which may get an extension to 2012, can with its 0.98 GW capacity potentially generate around 37% of electricity demand in Wales. This demand has actually fallen recently due to the closure of the largest consumer of electricity in Wales, Anglesey Aluminium Metal at Holyhead, which used around 12% of annual consumption in Wales.
The new Wylfa B power station which will be built on Anglesey by Horizon Nuclear Power (RWE and E.ON) is expected to have a capacity of around 5GW, which when fully operational in aroud 10 to 12 years time could meet a demand of up to 42 TWh, 175% the current demand in Wales.
So the future is likely to see Wales making a significant contribution to low carbon power generation in the UK, using both nuclear as a baseload supply and a range of exciting new renewable technologies such as wind, tidal and even wave, alongside hydro and pump storage.
And while the national grid network will continue to be strategically important, there will be a growing role for microgeneration where local communities can potentially own both the generation and distribution of electricity based on innovative mutual models of ownership and operation.
But aren’t you looking at Wales from a UK perspective here. Were Wales independent it would be an exporter of energy, Wales produces some 6% of the UK’s energy for 4.5% of it’s population. An independent Wales would benefit from having a comparatively small population (like Denmark, Norway etc) to her landmass.
Were Denmark a part of Germany, then her green energy use wouldn’t look so good either.
In many respects, Wales already has energy independent except that the statistics are always given in an UK-wide perspective.
Independence would force the Welsh exchequer to become self-financing in a transparent way. In short, it would force the Welsh government (of what ever colour) to develop economic policies which generate income for Wales and for local councillors and individuals also to avoid so much Nimby-like objectins as there’ll be an obvious and transparent correlation between generating income and infrastructure being built.
As you suggest Jamie, investing in green technology then this could be one of generating wealth for Welsh communities. However, the lack of progress, as you note, is that there is no great need for this amongst our decision makers nor voters to generate wealth. Having valuable resources like water deliberately omitted from the Govt of Wales Act 2006 in a colonial grab by Westminister only makes things worse as the public see no link between having to put up with ‘ugly’ developments with no immediate economic or social benefit not to talk of environmental. A Welsh government would have difficulty in getting permission and local people supportive of many projects, but I believe they’d have less difficulty if people understood that the economic benefit would go straight to a Welsh exchequer with democratic control an income from the profits made.
We are a very rich country. Put simply, the present constitutional settlement doesn’t create the urgency to create wealth. If Wales were independent she would have to learn to swim quite soon, and we would, using our abundant and valuable resources.
” I’m particularly astounded by the short-sightedness of local councils and planning officials.”
Can’t say that I am, Rob. Generally speaking local councils and planning officials across Wales seem to have elevated short-sightedness into a fine art.
“Germany, with its 82 million inhabitants, renewable power generation accounts for around 7% of consumed energy.”
Unfortunately it appears that the situation in Germany is about to take a turn for the worse:
http://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/unternehmen/0,1518,672035,00.html
To “Black Dog”,
It’s unfortunate that you should want to use energy security and low carbon to present an argument for separatism for Wales. Don’t you think that having a National Grid is essential for baseload supply to be assured?
How can mere reliance on renewables, with the main component beinbg wind, in any way put a solid, predictable floor under the demand for electricity in Wales going forward?
Isn’t it the case that your desire to see an independent Wales has distracted you from the key imperatives for the Welsh economy as a key, organic part of the UK, namely the need to secure reliable, affordable supplies of energy, and preferably low carbon?
Many people in the energy industry think we’ve missed the boat with nuclear energy. They have serious concerns as to whether it will arrive in time to address our energy concerns, and whether those time concerns will be exacerbated by an absence of skills required to build nuclear reactors. It goes without saying that you need someone more qualified than a regular welder to make a good job of it.
In all my years as a reporter, nothing excited passionate argument quite like opencast mining and windfarms. It now looks like the Government has tired of waiting for local authorities to take the lead and will bulldoze renewables through. Personally, favour this approach.
The new Infrastructure Planning Commission (IPC) should also accelerate the process for all projects over 50MW, which all the above discussed are, except for the likely pilot 10.5 MW tidal farm off Skerries, Anglesey, be Seagen Wales Ltd..
The sclerotic planning system in Wales has often made energy and infrastructure developments very hard to do. This has disadvantaged us in a number of ways, including slowing the rate of renewable energy development and our failure to seize the opportunity of creating a new manufacturing sector complete with supply chain.
The fact is that some people understandably don’t want large new developments near their homes. They therefore lobby their local councillors and, even though the numbers of objectors may be small, it is often the case that schemes are turned down by councillors on spurious grounds and against their planning officers’ advice. And so starts years of delay. A planning rejection of a sustainable energy scheme may look good for local democracy, but in some cases it is bad for society as whole. Unfortunately, we can’t buld anything that isn’t close to someone.
The UK government’s Infrastructure Planning Commission will soon rule on large scale developments. I have no doubt that this will upset some people – but I hope it will finally help us to get things moving so we can achieve our goals of achieving increasingly sustainable and secure supplies of energy.
I for one have never understood why the large reservoirs in Wales couldn’t be retrofitted with HEP stations – I am sure there are sound engineering reasons why, can anyone enlighten me?
Wind energy is notoriously fickle, any serious pump storage or any other energy storage schemes proposed to even out the highs and lows?
Energy production is a thorny issue, yet the only mechanism that is being employed to encourage people to conserve energy or switch to lower usage is the price mechanism. If we are serious about the energy issue then there would be a massive crash program of insulation and the development of micro generation – I really don’t see much action on this front.
How viable are tidal lagoons, coupled with wind farms built on top?
Lots of questions – and no doubt more to come.
In response to the separatist arguments,
I do not profess to be an expert in all things devolutionary, but when it comes to energy generation, we have to maintain a healthy degree of centralism.
The immense investment required to construct the Wylfa B power station, mentioned in the comments above, could only be realistically met through international energy firms with the balance sheets to consider taking such a long position.
Otherwise, we end up back at the issue of subsidies for the nuke industry as a form of public funding, which central government has repeatedly denied exist, beyond the obvious multi-billion pound accident insurance.
Wylfa B may well generate enough power* to see Wales claim energy independence, but if built by the proceeds of international energy giants / rumoured subsidies on a UK-wide basis, there is no independence. Wylfa B may one day reside on Welsh land, it may have been built by Welsh hands. But was it funded by Welsh money?
In short, no public body can realistically afford to build a behmoth nuclear plant, without its citizens willfully paying via a sharp increase in their power bills. France may have done so, over the course of years; that was policy from the beginning, and so their citizens do not even notice the bill. Hence the curent trend – outside of states such as France, and now Finland – for leaving nuke construction in the private sector.
I can’t see the Welsh / UK parliament funding a nuke venture, for reasons of expense and voter consternation. Therefore centralisation remains the key. For now.
*Just a note: David Phillips, you mention Wylfa B as a 5GW plant, which would generate 175% Wales consumption? E.ON and RWE, the two firms that are building Wylfa B, are looking to build 6GW of capacity spread over a small number of plants across the UK. Europe’s first “3rd generation plant” is being built in Finland today, and will be 1.6GW. Wylfa B will fall within the same generation, so will likely be around 1.5GW-2GW, even given the 10-12 year lag. Mind you I could be wrong? Hook a few hamsters up to the wheel, and who knows where you end up?!
The proposed development of Wylfa B is emphatically wrong for the following reasons :
* the storage of waste on the surface at Wylfa (and elsewhere) for 160 years,, as announced by the OND proliferates the number of sites capable of a terrorist attack. Despite Wales having devolved responsibility for waste management, this most important aspect of waste management is not devolved. It is not an area of “competency” we are allowed
* Wylfa is 1 minute flying time from RAF, Y Fali where pilots from around the world are trained. Who`s for taking bets there will be no incident within the 160 year time frame ?
*nuclear accidents can and do happen – some 350 farms in Eryri still have restricted sheep movements today some 24 years after the Chernobyl event. Remember that Wylfa has been fined £500k by the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate for breaches of safety
* Buncefield was an appalling environmental disaster in the petro-chemical industry some 4 years ago. The inquiry showed it was “human and mechanical error” that was responsible. Murphy`s law says it will happen again in the nuclear industry in the course of time, but this time with potentially far more serious consequences
* The focus on Wylfa B has paralysed any serious attempts to create a balanced economic development strategy for this island. Today, the island with Wylfa A, has the lowest GVA in the UK and with the closure of Anglesey Aluminium, is down to approximately 50% of the UK average. This, in spite of north-west Wales presenting some of the best opportunities for alternative energy production.. The recent decision by DECC to establish wind turbines in the Irish Sea is to be welcomed. In Germany today there are some 250,000 people working in the alternative energy sector c.f. some 25,000 in the UK. . Not surprisingly that country is planning to phase out its 16 nuclear stations and does not propose to build any more – and this from Europe`s economic powerhouse !
* Employment, or the lack of it, has been the main imperative for supporting the Wylfa B proposal. The new developments in the Irish Sea together with other alternative energy proposals in the offing, will present many job opportunities to meet the challenges ahead. Also, decommissioning at Wylfa will secure many hundreds of jobs for a generation, witness Trawsfynydd. This gives us the opportunity to take full advantage of our resources
* The nuclear industry requires an adequate uranium supply. This is limited in nature and, with Kazakhstan now the world`s major supplier, hardly a secure source in the long term. The mining of uranium is highly polluting and injurious to the workers. Exporting the dangers of mining a resource borders on the racial
* The building of nuclear power stations is highly polluting and produces huge amounts of CO2 – not the carbon-friendly animal we are often told it is
* The nuclear industry will have to stand on its own two feet according to the Westminster Government with no subsidies. Not true, As the document “Nuclear Subsidies” published by the Nuclear Fair group explains, nuclear energy is already highly subsidised from the need for indemnity and security for the industry to the creation of a nuclear academy – http://www.nonukes.org.uk
* neither of the two nuclear prototypes from Westinghouse and Areva are yet proven in practice. Current EPR stations with Areva`s model in Olkiluoto, Finland and Flamanville, France are proving an embarassment both in terms of escalating cost and slippage of the timescale – Olkiluoto is already three years behind schedule and over 2billion dollars overspent
* A letter of October 2009, from the Sustainable Energy and Industry office in the Welsh Assembly Government indicated that Wales` current electricity consumption was 24TWhr per year but with the right innovation and investment and the right government framework and support, Wales could produce over 33TWhr per year – half of this from marine, a third from wind and the rest mainly from sustainable biomass
* All this and further opportunities from hydro, solar and photo-voltaics not to mention the imperative of energy conservation and reduced reliance on electricity whatever its source.
Finally, in 2005 Wales, together with the relevant Departments in Scotland, Northern Ireland and England signed a Concordat on “The Implementation of the Justification of the Practices involving Ionising Radiation Regulations”. As a consequence, the United Kingdom has four “justifying authorities” and the Environment Minister in WAG wrote to Lord Hunt, the Minister of State in DECC calling for a public inquiry prior to the justification of any new nuclear build. This has been rejected and one has to ask why this obstruction to a legitimate democratic request ?
It is time for serious and objective dialogue on energy policy and avoid the knee-jerk response as typified by the “lights are going off” and we must do something !
To Jamie,
I apologise; my mistake. It is not 5GW but 5.3GW, according to the Horizon Nuclear Power EIA Scoping Document for the Wylfa Head project. So I have underestimated the contribution, which will take it closer to 200% of electricity demand in Wales, on the basis of the same assumptions outlined earlier. The scoping document was produced in line with the Infrastructure Planning (Environmental Impact Assessment) Regulations 2009, which came into force in October 2009.
All the comments about Wylfa B are interesting, but it is still not clear that it will a favoured site.
I believe that Wales should grasp this opportunity for offshore wind. We already have nearby ports and harbours capable of managing the shipping and transportation required, available manufacturing bases and a skillbase capable of adapting. Now is the renewable industrial revolution and we should be leading, as Wales has led before in industrial technologies. What needs to be different this time, is in the people of Wales gaining from these developments.
We need to avoid this continuous false dichotomy that we must not pursue Wylfa B because Wales needs to expand renewable energy, principally using wind power, both offshore and onshore.
The recent granting of licences by the Crown Estate for the development of massive wind farms off the UK coast, including one off Anglesey as well as in the Bristol Channel, is great news, but this is not a substitute for a programme of new nuclear build.
New nuclear and renewables such as wind, tidal, anaerobic digestion, wave and solar are not mutually exclusive, but rather they are complimentary. Those who bang on about this choice should realise that one form of energy addresses the baseload requirement while the other helps meet the periods of peak demand.
Frankly, it is disingenuous to overlook the importance of the complimentary relationship between these two essential sources of energy.
CiDu has a point.
If Wales were independent, then Wales would be a net exporter of energy, lowering the costs for energy for the average Welsh household. In turn, excess energy could be sold on the international electric grid to other countries in Europe for profit. This is not a new suggestion. According to prize winning economist Dr. DJ Davies in many essays spanning the 30’s until his death in 19569, Wales should look towards the Tennessee Valley Authority for inspiration on how to develop a sustainable-and for profit- electric generation and economic development.
Today of coarse tidal power, wind power, and (to a degree on par with Germany) solar power, would compliment hydroelectric, coal, and nuclear power.
David,
I do not believe that Wales needs a nuclear station, either currently or in the future. The UK may need Wales to have one, on the other hand.
The more sources and forms of renewable energy that exist in the Wales, then the larger base load that is created by them. I believe that biomass has an interesting potential here, along with microgeneration for more remote areas, to reduce the losses transmitting for small remore demands.
Ian,
I don’t consider myself to be a proponent or exponent of nuclear power, and believe that nuclear power plants are relatively safe. I would rather have energy by renewable and green sources though, and I am very interested in tidal power. In the mean time, nuclear power plants in Wales means high-paying dependable jobs, and that is something I respect.
I will need to research more into biomass and microgeneration. I certinly do not believe one size fits all and that energy should be produced closer to home to reduce dependence.
Lyn David Thomas
“I for one have never understood why the large reservoirs in Wales couldn’t be retrofitted with HEP stations.”
I also agree with this. Near us we have a huge reservoir in Llyn Brianne which should be capable of generating
sufficient hydro electric power for the entire S. West of Wales. Why is this not considered? I’m informed that the proposed windfarm on Betws mountain near Ammanford, would cost more to build and can only generate a fraction of the potential electricity. Apparantly, a wind turbine costs more to manufacture and install than it can generate in power in its entire 25yr life span even given a 3x premium for ‘green’ electricity. Please tell me I’m wrong!
I also agree with those commentators above that are suggesting that we would be more enthusiastic about granting planning for and getting local community support for, big new power generating plants, even nuclear, if the local needs/demands were satisfied first before feeding into the vast voracious bottomless UK national grid. We still remember what has happened (and is still happening) to our water! Llyn Tryweryn Mawr anyone?
Long term the solution lies in multiple-basin tidal lagoons located offshore. Hugely expensive to build, but once built good for a 1,000 years. Like the weir at Chester. At its simplest this involves building electric railways to quarry an entire large Welsh mountain (or two) and dump the quarried rock in the Irish Sea. Building the sea wall and extending the railway as you go. Victorian engineers could have made it happen with steam where 21st century engineers will not be allowed to make it happen using electricity. More than half of the Irish Sea is shallow enough to be developed in this way and has enough tidal range to have a fully developed potential of generating more than 100% of the electricity needed by the UK and Ireland together. A 50 year project, about the same as the Mersey training walls construction into Liverpool Bay.