Their was an interesting programme on last night The genius of Invention, that covered energy saving from the Newcomen engine to present day Drax switching over to bio fuels for generating electricity.

When you look at the generating capacity of Drax featured on it, the Irish wind farms will be quite literally whistling into the wind by comparison.

The Britain Ireland interconnector went live last September http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/77897508-0322-11e2-a484-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2IzHv5aRP

"The UK is not big enough to produce sufficient bio fuel to run Drax, at full power, without foregoing food production."

We have quite a lot of acreage producing Willow bio fuel near me. The ground it grows in is low marshy land that isn't likely to produce a food crop of any value. I suppose that over time it can be made so as so in the fens.

The nearest coal fired power station to me, Thorpe Marsh, was demolished last year and will be replaced by a gas burner which is certainly a finite fuel resource that should be reserved for domestic use.

Personally with the amount of electricity that we need, I see a nuclear future with us being a civilised secure country.

On my last few visits to Germany I noticed that they are really into using wind power. The Germans are pretty savvy about these type of things and usually get well ahead of us.

One German farmer told me that he no longer works his farm, as it is easier to get the income from the electricity he sells to the government. On a trip from Duisburg to Kiel I was thinking about how the British would be bleating about the countryside being disfigured etc. Who is right is anybody's guess. Only time will tell.