[MarkuisMellvile]

What about marine energy systems (tidal flow - barrage or current - or wave motion)?

The UK distribution network (local, regional and national) was designed when coal was cheap and the consequences of fossil fuel consumption were unknown; it was all good as far as the Victorians were concerned and the Georgians carried on investing in the network on the same basis. Of course the CEGB (or those engineers who began their careers as apprentices for it and have always thought of the grid on that basis) could be forgiven for basing arguments about grid stability on what they know and are comfortable with.

Of course the money to continue investing in our grid (pitifully ignored for most of the last 40 years!) has to come from somewhere. It used to be Government owned but the industry was broken up through the process of privatisation, back when enough people were convinced that private business could do a better job of providing power to the UK than the clumsy Governments of the 60s and 70s had done - in their opinion!

I'm not arguing for nationalisation of our power infrastructure (although the recent Government bail out of British Energy and Northern Rock have shown that isn't impossible), but that we have to move on from a time when we thought making money was all that mattered (the usual background and caveats apply! i.e. I have a mortgage too).

The reserve power needed to support increased penetration of interruptible supplies from wind could come from spinning reserve (fossil or biomass powered!) but equally the grid could be designed around non-thermal but predictable supplies of electricity. People with narrow persepctives are more of a problem than the grid we've built on the principles applied as it was developed when releasing millions of tonnes of sequestered carbon into the atmosphere was acceptable!

MM