UK energy management
The current Uk energy mix is 75 million tonnes of oil, 150 million tonnes of gas, 190 million tonnes of coal, 120 millions of tonnes of nuclear, and less than 5 tonnes of hydroelectric.
In the 60’s Britain relied on domestic coal reserves, soon finding further resources beneath the North Sea, Britain has used these to the point where it has almost run out, this caused The UK to begin importing resources such as natural gas from other countries such as Russia. This also led to the exploration of wind energy and its potential offshore of the UK.
The UK faces and energy gap because since 2004 they have begun consuming more energy than is produced; this is also due to the fact that reserves of fossil fuels produced by the UK are being used too fast.
Nuclear power began in the 60’s with only 20 power stations; nuclear energy peaked in 1998 when 25% of the UK’s electricity came from nuclear power plants. It has since reduced to about 12%. Development was disrupted due to the events of the Three Mile Island incident in the US of A, and the Chernobyl incident. These gave nuclear power a bad image in the UK, causing there to be no more nuclear stations built since 1995, although in 2009 the government finally agreed (67% majority) that nuclear power is necessary for the development of the UK.
The UK has enough wind energy potential to gain over 129,000MW of electricity.
The UK fell behind other countries in wind power generation due to reluctant public and difficult building laws. Residents against wind power simply say that the turbines ‘are an eyesore and bring noise pollution’ others say they prefer bigger power plants just because they are ‘used to them’. This sort of public disappeal slows down the process of building turbines, which leads to the UK being the 8th biggest producer of wind energy in Europe, when it could easily be the biggest producer.

With only 20 viable sites of wave/tidal energy station in the world, the UK is positioned with access to 8 of them and could produce 1/5 of its energy using these stations. This could power 7500 homes and save 300000 tonnes of carbon emissions per year.
£40m Islay tidal power project