The looming energy gap

The Fellsassociates (whoever they are) have just published another (in quite a long line now) of reports detailing how we should move ahead to a low carbon economy.
There are some big names amoungst the authors, including one from Imperial who I have heard of.

Largely I think that they are correct. What is interesting to note is that they are NOT calling for a scrapping of renewables (etc. etc. etc.), rather restating what is already known - local generation is inefficient, the renewables obligation is really really expensive, we're going to have to rely on fossil to make up the ballance of the electricity generated for a long time yet, our power stations are closing down.

The position they are taking is one of pragamtism. You can't have a low carbon economy without nuclear. A severn barrage, whilst very expensive and having a strong negative impact on wildlife in the estuary, will generate a lot of electricity very reliably with few emissions.

Someone has finally stood up and said it - "Wind currently has a nameplate capacity of 2546MW from 2032 turbines, which actually delivers an average production of 635MW... If the initiative is left to the market, without radical government rethinking, we will get more of the same – gas-fired stations, with their dependency on imported fuel, and unreliable, highly subsided wind".

We're not arguing against wind mind - it has it's place. We just want to see more than just wind.