Thanks Peter for the links.

How is tidal electricity going these days?
It would seem that wherever there are tides that generation should be possible.

Peter, I have just finished reading those links.
I had previously read and used the first link.
The second one (Energy Matters), was new to me and was very interesting.

It was more or less like I expected the difficulties of matching an
intermittent supply to a varying demand would be like, in fact worse.
The concluding opinion on finance was not a surprise to me either.
In fact don't you think that the declining investment is wind and solar
in Europe is in reality a reflection of a poor ERoEI ?

Bazz,

I suspect the declining investment in wind and solar in Europe is a reflection of the fact they are not close to being economically viable, even with the huge incentives they receive. The incentives are damaging the countries economies. Furthermore, wind and solar do not meet the key requirements of the electricity system. I suspect wind and solar have been a massive costly experiment and the world is waking up to this. The incentives have been tolerated up to now because of the hopes for a bright future promoted by the RE advocates. But as their proportion of electricity generation climbs above a few percent, the costs are starting to be felt. people are starting to realise the true costs. The masses cannot be fooled for long.

"250 onshore windfarms will be scrapped as taxpayer subsidies are axed

LARGE swathes of the British countryside are to be spared the blight of windfarms by the axing of taxpayer subsidies, Energy Secretary Amber Rudd has revealed." John Ingham, Daily Express, 23 June 2015

Consider the total worldwide cost of CO2 abatement if CO2 abatement was never required.

The cost of the RET adds approximately 4% over all to the retail price of electricity. The problem in Australia is that electricity consumption is falling, therefore all added renewable power to the grid is virtually bound to displace existing coal generation. This in simple terms means that the actual cost to the economy is, the loss incurred as a result of mothballing existing coal fired stations, plus the cost of building renewable power systems. The problem is unavoidable unless we choose to only add renewables when the existing coal units reach the end of their design life or more power is required. Unfortunately if all countries take this path we have no hope of keeping CO2 levels below levels that the scientists tell us will create significant climate problems.

On the plus side replacing coal power with renewables has numerous advantages beyond just reducing CO2 emission. The health benefits are considerable, extracting coal is dangerous and incurs serious health risks, Coal dust is very bad for the lungs, and burning it releases numerous toxic chemicals. The environmental costs are high even before you consider the effects of increasing levels of co2 in the atmosphere. Coal fired stations also use large qualities of fresh water which could be redirected for domestic and agricultural use.

In Australia by virtue of the fact that adding extra capacity to the system causes downward pressure on wholesale electricity, prices have not risen as fast as might be expected. During peek periods very high prices are paid to for the last available megawatts of power, for example wholesale prices have in the past risen by well in excess of ten times the normal price. In fact it is these spikes in the wholesale price that accounts for much of the profit of coal fired power stations.

Direct action as proposed by the current government may or may not be able to achieve a net reduction in CO2 emission but it is necessary to tackle the problem head on and that means transitioning to a low carbon economy and phasing out coal power.