Nuclear power

[Suff]

Well said Frank! It seems to me that nuclear power is the only feasible way forward

Actually not. A Severn Tidal barrier could produce 27% of the UK power requirements, Be 100% clean, cost nothing to run beyond maintenance as the raw fuel comes in twice a day. Built faster. Probably, in the long run, cheaper.

But it will destroy some wetlands....

THAT is the reality of renewables, energy and green politics.

We really are too stupid as a race to survive. I just hope that whomsoever should inherit the earth, after we are gone, is a tad more sensible. Although, of course, we'll have used the billions of years of fossil fuel reserves so they won't really have an option will they???

[Workingman]

We do have the skills, but as Kaz hinted at earlier their owners are 'of an age', we do not have younger ones with the skills in anything like the numbers required, in many sectors.

In the nuclear industry anyone working in Design and Build or Modification and Maintenance in the 70s or 80s would have been mad not to think about retraining or taking their skills elsewhere once the contract they were working on was finished - the writing was on the wall. It would have been similarly mad to spend a fortune training for a niche job when there would be a large pool of experienced operatives out there looking for the same. That's how skills gaps happen.

When Germany had built its domestic nuclear power stations it didn't stop there. Companies such as AEG and Siemens continued to build reactors of all sizes for export. They teamed up with Westinghouse and Fujitsu for installations and signed lucrative ongoing servicing contracts. They needed a steady conveyor belt of skills so still have them in spades.

As for the Severn Tidal barrage, I do not know where the 27% of UK power figure comes from. The best figures I can find lie between 5% and 7%. Now that is not insubstantial, by any means, and could well be part of the overall mix of generation, but it would come from an unproven technology and the Hafren scheme has already been rejected by government.

Two Hinkley C type reactors, proven technology, would between them give more power than the Severn Barrage for roughly the same cost.