Sea energy to power Britain

Waves and tides could generate 20 per cent of electricity and replace nuclear fuel, report says

Juliette Jowit, environment editor
Sunday January 29, 2006
The Observer

Surrounded by some of the world's roughest seas, Britain could generate a fifth of its electricity by harnessing the power of tides and waves.

The potential of marine energy is revealed in a report by the government's energy advisers. Wave and tidal power could replace the electricity that is currently produced by UK nuclear power stations, they state, and could prevent the need for Britain to rely on increased Russian gas imports.


Sea energy to power Britain

Waves and tides could generate 20 per cent of electricity and replace nuclear fuel, report says

Juliette Jowit, environment editor
Sunday January 29, 2006
The Observer

Surrounded by some of the world's roughest seas, Britain could generate a fifth of its electricity by harnessing the power of tides and waves.

The potential of marine energy is revealed in a report by the government's energy advisers. Wave and tidal power could replace the electricity that is currently produced by UK nuclear power stations, they state, and could prevent the need for Britain to rely on increased Russian gas imports.

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Harnessing the sea, particularly around Cornwall and the north of Scotland, with machines that capture the movement of tides and waves, has long been a dream of scientists. In recent years the quest for clean, renewable power to replace polluting fossil fuels has taken on a new urgency as the world battles to reduce carbon emissions from coal, oil and gas which are the biggest cause of climate change.

Until now, marine power generators have been limited to a couple of small prototypes, considered too futuristic to take seriously as the answer to the planet's energy problems. The study by the Carbon Trust, which advises the government on clean energy, challenges that. It predicts tidal and wave power generators could be supplying a significant amount of power to the electricity grid by the end of this decade.

Its report follows a £3m, 18-month research project into how marine energy generators could work, part of £50m of support programmes promised by government. The report, which is being studied by ministers, says that the opportunities for machines which use the power of waves to produce electricity are 'considerable'. Based on the number of sites with reliable tides and waves and close enough to connect to the mainland, such equipment could be supplying a fifth of the country's current electricity needs over following decades.

Given Britain's long coastline, close to the strong currents of the Atlantic, marine power would also help to solve another of the government's key priorities - reducing reliance on imported energy sources, said John Callaghan, one of the trust's programme engineers.

'The UK leads the world in marine renewables technology,' he said. 'Given our superb natural resources and long-standing experience in off-shore oil and gas, ship-building and power generation, the UK is in a prime position to accelerate commercial progress in the marine energy sector.'

The report was welcomed by environmentalists: 'Solutions to climate change and the threat and expense of nuclear power exist; we just need the political will to implement them,' said a spokesman for Greenpeace.

However the Carbon Trust also highlights problems. The new technology will need investment by the government and private companies and there is no reliable forecast for when it will be available on the large scale, said Callaghan. There are concerns that power generators at sea would be expensive to connect to the electricity grid, could not always provide power when it was needed, and may pose problems for sea life.

Dr Jon Gibbins of Imperial College, London, questioned how much marine power could meet Britain's aim of tackling climate change because that would require global agreement to reduce carbon. Many countries did not have suitable sites and could not afford the new technology, he said. 'That doesn't mean we can't try it [marine power] and won't do it,' he added. 'But if you want to rely on marine technologies to displace fossil fuel use you're being very optimistic.'

The World Wildlife Fund said it was against tidal barrages (which are not covered by the trust's report) that create huge physical barriers to marine life in sensitive estuaries, but it supported the harnessing of tidal and wave power as long as sites were chosen carefully.

Callaghan said the trust had identified 'tens, possibly hundreds' of suitable sites for wave power, principally off south-west England and north-west Scotland, and a dozen sites for tidal power turbines, half of them in the Pentland Firth between the Scottish mainland and the Orkneys.