General Discussion

And also why I've long been a fan and proponent of tidal stream generation, which is as reliable and predictable as moonrise and moonset, and could do with a lot more interest and investment. With the varied tide times we have around our intricate coast, it wouldn't be rocket science to develop an overlapping grid that could deliver that holy grail of energy nuclear-lovers adore - baseload.

A major challenge that's only partly being addressed so far is how to store excess power from times and locations of plenty. We have many decades-old major pumped storage hydro systems in Scotland that are a partial answer and can be brought online very quickly when needed. Another more recent and more hi-tech partial solution is conversion of surplus electricity to hydrogen through electrolysis. There are and will be others, including battery storage as you mentioned, and some will be more suited to certain situations than others and have their own pitfalls and advantages. I'd rather put money, time and resources into pursuing and deploying those than the boondoggle of waste and delay we've seen at Hinkley, with nothing to show for it so far and the climate clock still ticking.

The latest brainwave that was doing the rounds a couple of years ago, and one where the all too eager nuclear industry seemed to have our government's ear, was mini-nuclear installations that would be dotted around the country. Another red herring, and one that's not aged well given threats to and actual attacks on nuclear installations in recent conflicts, most notably Ukraine. And also one that again doesn't address that thorny and unavoidable issue of long-term access to adequate supplies of coolant water in a country where England's aquifers are already running dry.

I wasn't a big fan of wind power way back when it started being rolled out extensively in the UK, I felt there were alternative renewable sources - mainly sea-based around an archipelago nation - that we would have been better off developing, but it was low-hanging fruit, tried-and-tested technology, and could be deployed quickly and at scale. And so it's proven. It can't be the be-all and end-all, but it's certainly been better than the alternatives, as I've come to admit.

I notice you've tried to dodge my arguments about French nuclear power's major and unavoidable problems with coolant and consequent lack of capacity, which will be shared by nuclear installations all over the world and is a problem that isn't going to go away and is going to get worse. You really lost me when you offhand threw in a reference to the French power system as "green", even if that's just the convenient (subliminal?) colour used as a map key. Any system worth that title would at least have to have figured out what to do with its waste, rather than leaving it for some wunder-solution to be scrabbled together by future generations. I also note that your map doesn't separate Scotland out as a generating unit, which is unfortunate as we're dragged down into that rather jaundiced shade of green by the rest of the UK, otherwise I'd pitch us against France in the colour wheel stakes any day.

You've also not addressed my information about the ongoing clusterfuck that is the UK's most recent misadventure with nuclear power, a resource trumpeted by none other than our late queen as being capable of producing electricity "too cheap to meter" when she opened our first nuclear power station - the first of many nuclear industry promises that fell apart when faced with reality, and so it continues.

Then you tried to suggest that Big Oil was targeting nuclear with propaganda, when since the 1960s there have been extremely well documented campaigns by the petrochemical lobby to deny climate science and muddy the water where renewables are concerned and obstruct their development and deployment. Which is a major reason why we're where we are today.

Forgive me if I don't have the time, energy or patience to chase you down whatever further rabbitholes are coming. Do what you want in California, we'll do what we want in Scotland.

You could maybe start by electing a government that will, long-overdue, finally build or sponsor a properly joined-up integrated modern US power grid rather than the cobbled-together mess you live with and are trying hard to knit together, to make better use of your continental time zones and wide variety of resources. What you plug into it is up to you.