Torres don’t like green

Even if they insist they do. Last week the government refused to fund the Swansea bay tidal energy scheme. At 1.2 billion quid, it was just too expensive, they said. Not that cost got in the way of them giving the go-ahead for Huntley ‘C’ nuclear power station, which will cost at least 20 times as much. And they’re just as keen on replacing the obsolete nuke on Anglesey, which will likewise cost an enormous sum.
            Not so long ago the Japanese Prime Minister visited Britain, and Wales, and warned against building nukes, reminding us what happened at Fukushima, where elaborate precautions had been taken to protect it against any and all disasters that might befall it- and then proved totally inadequate in the event. Funny really, as it’s the Japanese firm Hitachi which has been given the contract to develop the Anglesey site.
            Meanwhile the government has made no secret of its enthusiasm for fracking, which, with its threat to the water table and its potential for further CO2 pollution is the very antithesis of ‘clean energy’. “Energy security” they bleat. We’ve got to ensure the lights keep working and not fear the Saudis or the Ruskies will just turn the supplies off at a whim. Fair enough, but I ask you, what is more secure than the knowledge that the tide will come in and go out twice a day?

It’s true the Swansea scene wasn’t going to be cheap. But it’s an early design, an innovation, the first perhaps in a line of other tidal schemes that could operate up and down the country, each design becoming better as lessons are learned. And it wouldn’t have blown up or pushed out more greenhouse gases into an air already dangerously saturated. For God’s sake, give green energy a chance. We need it, and our children need it even more