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LONDON: The government opened a major new phase on Wednesday in its drive for renewable energy, calling for bids to build up to 25 gigawatts of offshore wind turbines, triple the amount in the pipeline. The announcement by the government agency, the Crown Estate, which owns the seabed surrounding the country was welcomed by British Wind Energy Association chairman Adam Bruce as "impressively bold."

A tiny rectangle superimposed on the vast expanse of the Sahara captures the seductive appeal of the audacious plan to cut Europe's carbon emissions by harnessing the fierce power of the desert sun. Dwarfed by any of the north African nations, it represents an area slightly smaller than Wales but scientists claimed yesterday it could one day generate enough solar energy to supply all of Europe with clean electricity.

An underwater turbine that generates electricity from tidal streams was plugged into the UK's national grid today. It marks the first time a commercial-scale underwater turbine has fed power into the network and the start of a new source of renewable energy for the UK.

While the arguments rage on both sides, the experts say that time is running out For the workers at Oldbury-on-Severn nuclear power plant, the next new year celebrations could be rather poignant. Just as Britain is planning the rebirth of nuclear power generation, their ageing plant will be closing down, probably on December 31. Oldbury, in Gloucestershire, has been pouring power into the national grid since 1967 and is the latest in a series of closures that has seen Britain's nuclear generating capacity fall from nearly 40% of the nation's needs in the 1980s to just 15% now. Most of the slack has been taken up by new gas-fired stations.

Offshore wind could be described as the younger sibling of onshore wind, with the first offshore windfarm being completed off the coast of Denmark 1991. In countries such as the US, offshore wind is almost non-existent at the moment , but offshore wind is particularly strong in the UK and Europe, with 1.9GW being installed on the continent in the first half of 2019.