Dear Editor

I am writing in response to the letter from Dave Haskell in the 12/11/13 letters page.

Because of Dave’s style of letter writing involving so much “name calling” it is sometimes difficult to see what point is being made. In this case it seems to be that it is mad, naïve and purposefully misleading to suggest meaningful power generation is possible, particularly in Wales, from anything other than very large Combined Cycle Gas fired power stations such as the new 2 GW plant in Milford Haven.

When considering all aspects of energy strategy, changing perspectives in three different areas have to be considered, energy cost, security and carbon content. Yes, CCGT power generation has up until recently been the cheapest generation option with good energy security credentials when the UK was self-sufficient in North Sea gas. Unfortunately 97% of acknowledged climate scientists now agree that it is the burning of fossil fuels such as gas , oil and coal which has fundamentally led to present global warming and the need to change to prevent global devastation in the next century. Wales and the UK have accepted this in firm future government commitments which would be broken and the UK heavily penalised if we continued to rely solely on burning gas for energy as proposed by Dave. It is not even still the cheapest option, proved by government (DECC) statistics from last year showing a 32% reduction in the use of gas for generation, replaced by an increase in renewables and a 33% increase in the use of coal as the international traded price of gas has gone up so much. The UK is running out of North Sea reserves and 59% of our energy is now imported (the gas for Milford Haven through the politically unstable area of the Suez canal) and gas is no longer so secure an energy source. Because of this many new CCGT stations similar to Milford are being mothballed due to the future price of traded gas making them uncommercial. Given that gas generation is no longer the cheapest energy source, is much less secure and is not low carbon, while it still has a part to play as a short and medium term solution to UK energy provision it has to be part of a lower carbon mix of sources and Dave is very wrong indeed. As a separate issue, yes I do want to bring as much central government subsidy into Wales as possible. The subsidy is needed to make required low carbon generation competitive in the early days and has worked in the case of wind as on shore turbine generation is projected to equal the cost of gas by 2018, driven partly by the well-publicised recent major increase in gas supply prices and if there is a possibility for such subsidy to be returned to the community rather than big business I unashamedly want that as well. The only thing that I agree with in Dave’s letter is that my spelling can be atrocious

BRIAN MARK

Poppit.