HC Deb 17 March 1987 vol 112 c459W
Dr. Michael Clark

asked the Secretary of State for Energy which sites, other than the Severn estuary, are being considered by his Department for tidal power generation.

Mr. David Hunt

The Department is giving 50 per cent. support to the Mersey Barrage company's current £800,000 study of a barrage in that estuary. Preliminary surveys of three possible small scale sites have been made by consultants and reports of these have been published and placed in the Library of the House. A further preliminary survey of all other feasible small scale sites on the west coast of the United Kingdom is in progress.

£ millions
1980/1 1981/2 1982/3 1983/4 1984/5 1985/6
NUCLEAR R, D & D 18.62 205.4 214.8 203.8 196.2 189.6
NON NUCLEAR R, D & D TOTAL 33.2 46.1 40.2 40.0 40.8 45.4
of which:
Oil & Gas Production Technology 3.7 4.3 3.2 4.5 4.4 5.7
Oilfield Delineation and Safety 14.2 15.8 13.0 14.2 15.1 18.0
Coal 2.7 4.6 3.0 3.0 0.7 0.6
Energy Efficiency1 1.4 4.1 6.8 7.0 6.6 8.4
Renewables:2
Wind 0.8 0.9 2.5 2.5 4.8 5.4
Wave 3.3 4.4 3.1 10 0.4 0.4
Geothermal Aquifer 1.7 2.6 1.5 1.8 1.1 0.3
Geothermal HDR 0.6 5.6 3.0 2.9 4.6 3.5
Solar 0.9 0.7 1.4 0.9 0.5 0.7
Biomass 0.3 0.4 0.7 0.3 0.2 0.3
Tidal 1.4 0.4 0.0 0.0 0.3 0.1
ETSU Services 2.2 2.3 2.0 1.9 2.1 2.0
11.2 17.3 14.2 11.3 14.0 12.7
1 Figures for energy efficiency include demonstration scheme expenditure.
2 These figures for research development and demonstration into renewable sources of technology exclude external contributions to the programmes which are included in the response to the hon. Member for Barnsley, East (Mr. Patchett) on 10 December 1986 at column 199.