Offshore Renewable Power

Written by David Chappell and published in EADT on Sat 22nd May 2010

There has been a lot of nonsense spouted by some correspondents about the viability of offshore windfarms and their value in the campaign to reduce carbon emissions. Some have argued that they do not produce sufficient power, and others that the cost of building them is greater than the money generated by them.

The Offshore Valuation Group have now published a full economic study showing that offshore wind farms pay for themselves in just six years. An investment of £993 billion would generate £164 billion a year. This would allow Britain to generate so much electricity we could export it to Europe. The good news is that it is investors who pay for this are not taxpayers.

What Britain needs to do is refurbish our shipyards so that we can make these turbines in the UK and not import them for elsewhere. This whole thing has the potential of creating 145,000 new jobs!

The government's role is to encourage and support this industry and make sure any blocks to this investment are overcome. Then we can all benefit from the taxes raised and the reduced pollution from using diminishing stocks of oil.