Sir – Like John Tanner (Letters, October 4), I would like to look forward to a low-carbon future. However, he is living in a fantasy world if he thinks we can do without power stations — gas, nuclear or coal — to replace Didcot A.
To replace the Didcot A 2GW station generating capacity with wind power would need over 300 of the local Watchfield size wind farms (5 x 1.3MW), but one would be lucky if they operated more than 20 per cent of the time. A large gap then has to be filled, one that can arguably only be filled by conventional power stations.
Such stations are also essential to provide the back-up electricity (technically ‘spinning reserve’) required at short notice when the wind drops.
As for solar power, the local solar park at Howbery, Wallingford, has 3,000 solar panels producing a quoted 682MWh/yr. This sounds impressive until one calculates that in a year this is 25 thousand times less than produced at Didcot A.
Add to this the fact that the solar output is absent on dark winter mornings and evenings, means, as for wind energy, that we need conventional power stations — and when one shuts, it must be replaced.
One might consider it disappointing but the simple considerations above show that the idea of a low-carbon future is completely unrealistic.
John Evans, Abingdon
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