power Island - Anglesey Power Boost For Wales

The Isle of Anglesey off North Wales is the new vigor Island ready to power Wales towards a greener, low carbon 21st century future. Building its solid power platform nearby Wylfa Nuclear Power Station, this island in the Irish Sea will harness the natural power of wind and tide with the mega resource of nuclear vigor and natural gas.

Taking the name "Energy Island" local politicians hope these projects will play a major role in economic regeneration on Anglesey and lead to achieving key environmental targets both in Wales and more broadly in the Uk context.

Nuclear Reactor

The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (Nda) has now put up for sale nearby 400 acres of farm land adjacent to the Wylfa nuclear power hub covering Cemaes, a site operated by Magnox North.

This sale by the Nda, which owns civil nuclear sites over the Uk, and French vigor giant Edf, which previously acquired a container of adjacent land, will bring the prospect of new nuclear build to the island.

In expanding to Wylfa, the Nda is also aiming to dispose of land adjacent to nuclear sites at Oldbury in Gloucestershire and Bradwell in Essex.

Since the Uk Government signalled its intention to facilitate the renaissance of nuclear power earlier this year, there have been high hopes for new reactor on Anglesey, referred to as Wylfa B.

Using the most recent design of nuclear reactor such as the European Pressurized Reactor (Epr) designed by French business Areva, a new power hub on the island could furnish power for nearby two million homes.

Other international power generators have expressed an interest in Building and operating the new tranche of nuclear reactors due to be built in Britain. These contain Spanish firm Iberdrola, French vigor giant Gdf Suez, and German power firms Eon and Rwe.

Building on the foundation of a new nuclear reactor at Wylfa covering Cemaes, there is the prospect of using the tidal power between the Skerries rocks and Carmel Head.

The vigor business npower renewable, a subsidiary of Rwe Npower, is complicated with maritime Current Turbines limited of Bristol to design a 10.5 Mw tidal farm off Anglesey, adequate to generate capacity to power up to 6,000 homes.

The prototype of this Seagen turbine technology has already been launched in Strangford Lough in Northern Ireland and electricity is already being distributed into the transmission grid.

Expectations are that this multi-million pound scheme to connect the Seagen underwater turbines to the National Grid could be ready by 2011, assuming planning permission is given.

With the global dynamics in vigor security changing rapidly, the Uk government is finding at ways of securing trustworthy supplies of natural gas to ensure the lights will not go out in future. Along with coal and nuclear, natural gas is the other vigor source for generating baseload electricity.

At the site of the old Octel works in Amlwch Port, Us based gas firm Canatxx Lng limited has submitted plans to bring ashore liquid natural gas (Lng) from large specialised tankers.

The Lng which would come from countries as diverse as Qatar, Algeria and Trinidad would then be re-gasified and piped under the sea to Natby in Lancashire, stored in old salt caverns below the sea bed before being distributed to the Uk National Gas Grid.

Other renewable vigor sources already in operation are three wind farms which total over 70 turbines locations near Cemaes and Amlwch as well as above Llyn Alaw, a central island location.

The local council already sells electricity to the National Grid generated from a landfill gas site at Penhesgyn, east of Llangefni.

Local Mp Albert Owen, who has long been a champion of new nuclear build at Wylfa, is raising the Anglesey brand as an vigor Island. He believes the island has abundant natural resources and the skills base suitable for power generation, with huge inherent spin-offs for the local economy.

With such infrastructure this acts not just as a catalyst for job creation in the vigor industries but also as a magnet to attract other businesses inspecting provocative to Anglesey because of the installed power capacity.

It is also key to securing existing employment and industry, such as the jointly owned Kaiser Corporation - Rio Tinto aluminium smelter at Holyhead, which is a high vigor user, taking about 12% of power consumption in Wales.

Potential also exists to seek the amelioration of more tidal, wave and biomass forms of renewable vigor going forward. The time to come is finding very provocative for production Anglesey an vigor island off the North Wales coast.

power Island - Anglesey Power Boost For Wales