Climate expert urges Britain to go tidal
(27 February 2007)

One of Britain's leading climate experts, Sir John Houghton, has said that Britain can potentially source a fifth of its electricity from wave power.

Sir John, who is co-chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, told the Western Mail that Wales could play a major part with barrages in the Severn Estuary, and by backing proposals for tidal power in Swansea Bay and off the north Wales coast at Rhyl.

He said: "We should get on with it because we could get 20 per cent of our electricity from tidal energy."

Complaining that the government "has not seemed very interested in tidal for reasons that I don't understand," Sir John argues that: "Tidal power is an obvious resources and the Assembly should be putting their back into it now."

The call for Wales to do more on wave power comes in a week when the Scottish executive has awarded £13 million in grants for wave power projects, with the largest project being the Orkney collaboration between ScottishPower and wave energy experts Ocean Power Delivery.