Really cold day today and wind and solar are able to provide only 8% of the total power we are using.

fancythat

Sounds like we should have gone hydro in that case.

Why didnt we?

There’s nowhere really in the UK that has the water and the fall to generate that kind of power (apart from a couple of small stations).

Also 90% of the power Norway needs is much, much less than we need. Only 5.5 million people to supply!

Gingster

Why have we never used the sea? wave power? It’s always there.

It's far more expensive than the alternatives, but l think the Fins may be coming to help us. I also like whales so much l think we should leave their habitat alone. Of course there's no "proof' wave power causes whales to strand but also there's no "proof" it doesn't.

Electricity cannot be stored in large quantities so it’s got to be gas, storage has always been neglected, it up to the government to fund the provision of that.

The cheapest energy is nuclear once it’s built running cost is low, the energy used in construction is recovered very quickly. France has a high dependency and runs most of our nuclear power as a bonus.

Why have we never used the sea? wave power? It’s always there.

Norway has over 900 Hydro-electric plants providing just over 90% of the countries power.

They have a totally different landscape to the UK, many of these plants are in the Fjords.

The UK has only got the sea for hydro power really, and it’s a busy with a. multitude of shipping lanes.

Ilovecheese

We need to find better ways of storing energy.
If we want nuclear power we should put our money where our mouth is and build them ourselves, not pay for a foreign company to build them, who will then rip us off for generations to come.

They (foreign owned companies) are building huge battery storage areas in Scotland. This one's on a coal mine (what could possibly go wrong?) which is preferable to residential areas (last one by a housing estate that caught fire face off horrendous fumes)
No doubt they'll be all over the country, that's green energy after all.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5yd18q248jo.amp

Sounds like we should have gone hydro in that case.

Why didnt we?

Renewables give on average 40% of our total energy use. That is almost entirely wind and solar.

In contrast Norway gets nearly 99%of its energy from renewables. It has recently gone all electric. However their energy is largely from hydro, which I assume is more dependable than either solar or wind.

I wouldn’t be so quick at dismissing renewables, but I think nuclear must always be seen as a fall back unless technology can provide the means for it to be unnecessary.

We need to find better ways of storing energy.
If we want nuclear power we should put our money where our mouth is and build them ourselves, not pay for a foreign company to build them, who will then rip us off for generations to come.

I couldn’t agree more, but try telling Milliband that.