Plugging Britain's green energy gap

David Wighton: Business Editor’s commentary

The Government will be on stronger ground today when the focus turns to the potential for creating thousands of “green collar” jobs.
Britain's ageing energy infrastructure is falling apart. Replacing our crumbling, dirty power stations with modern nuclear reactors, wind and tidal power schemes will be a huge challenge. It also represents a great opportunity.
At a cost of at least £100 billion over the next ten years, their construction will provide work for hundreds of thousands of people.
At the same time, the export market for clean energy is just opening up, as governments around the world pass legislation that will force them to slash their carbon emissions.
The sad truth is that, despite a strong science base at universities and a handful of world-class businesses, British companies have not led the way. The Government may have ambitious plans to ring the country with offshore windfarms but the big turbine manufacturers are Germany's Siemens and Denmark's Vestas.
Back in the 1950s and 60s, Britain's nuclear industry led the world but it has since been carved up between the French and the Japanese.
In an effort to prevent us missing out again, the Government is joining some of Britain's biggest companies in a £600 million scheme called the Energy Technology Institute (ETI), more details of which will be announced today.
The credit crunch has left small companies and universities working in renewable energy starved of funding. The ETI hopes to fill some of that gap. It should be money very well spent.