Solar orbital power stations offer hope

DUE to concerns relating to environmental costs Haf Elgar, of Friends of the Earth Cymru, has voiced alarm at the expansion plans for South Hook in Milford Haven, Pembrokeshire, which processes about 20% of UK current demand for liquefied natural gas (LNG).

I would agree simply because LNG has a larger carbon footprint

than natural gas due to the way it is produced and has to be reduced in temperature to be transported in “polluting diesel engine ships” across the world.

Until truly renewable means of producing electrical energy come on stream, the UK should begin fracking, and have a programme for the relatively cheap and quick-tobuild gas-fired power stations of the CCGT variety that are 60% cleaner than their coal cousins. But this is the price we are all paying in our eye-watering energy bills for not having any suitably qualified technological and engineering members in Cabinet.

It is also the reason why a massive £700m of public money is to be invested in the new Sizewell C nuclear power station, not to overlook the estimated £24bn cost of the EDF Hinkley Point C nuclear power station.

It is total madness when we now have the technology to put solar power stations in orbit – a solar orbital power station producing 2,000MW which is comparable in power output to a nuclear power station, would cost a lot less, being in the region of £15bn as compared to £20bn-£30bn for a nuclear fission power station.

Realising of course, nuclear fusion is the Holy Grail of power generation. Dave Haskell Cardigan