How Britain is turning the North Sea into a giant power plant

The United Kingdom has 7 out of 10 of the largest offshore wind farms on Earth with the top 5 all being British, this frankly does not get talked about enough. the UK is on course for having more than the current 15 out of the 20 largest wind farms by 2030 coupled with new nuclear plants being built and more in planning the UK could be the First "MAJOR " industrialised power to let go of hydrocarbon power generation .

As someone working directly in the offshore wind industry and UK projects, it's great to watch this video, well done!

There is another twist to this story when we go back in history. Before coal we had windpower. In the 17th century the Netherlands were not only a major trading power, but also a major industrial power, using wind power from windmills to saw timber (which was also used to make ships), but also to process a range of other products.

Just last week it emerged the UK is the first major economy in the world to have halved its CO2 emissions. But not a peep from the mainstream media. UK emissions are now at levels not seen since 1890. 52% drop since 1977.

It's also worth noting that 2022 was the first year that the UK was a net exporter of electricity since the mid 1970s. Although other factors contributed (such as the temporary pauses for various French nuclear reactors), the main reason why the UK could supply excess electricity was due to the expansion of North Sea wind power. It's quite incredible to think that as recently as late 2021, electricity was a strategic weakness for the UK (e.g. France threatening to cut power supplies over a fishing dispute, although this would have likely fallen foul of international law), but it is now instead fast becoming a major export industry.

It's about time we benefited from our bad weather! Seriously though I think we are very lucky in energy potential from coal in the 1800s to the present. I think we just need to be realistic and keep investigating in nuclear.

Note: Celtic is only pronounced like Sell-tik when it comes to sport. In other areas e.g Celtic Sea, it's pronounced like Kell-tik

I never thought that strong wind would make me feel patriotic as a Brit but here we are

Britain doing something good for a change? As a Brit, that's refreshing 😅 Edit: Some of these comments.. If only I'd known what would happen!

The sun will shine on us again brethren 🇬🇧

9:30 there is a bit of a miss understanding here. carbon that is captured by land plants can be sequestated just as well as the carbon captured by sea plants, if you choose to do so. The sinking down to the sea floor is actually a bit of a problem dependent on the local ecosystem. The case for water plants is, that they are actually way more efficient growers, than land plants. If care to calculate the amount of carbon you can capture with land plants you quickly learn, that the potential is really not that high.

EnBW (German) and bp (British) were successful at an auction in Scotland: The partners are planning a 2.9 gigawatt offshore wind farm that also includes a power cable to Germany.

As a Norwegian, the Nr. 1 (!!!) thing on top of my head, after the gas-pipelines in the Baltic just go blew up, without anyone having any clear answer who it was. I can imagine that the Faroese Islands (or perhaps the Orkney's, that is already important for both the UK and NATO) to be a base to control the North-South route. As Skagerak/Kattegat in Denmark/Sweden/Norway, and the Channel in Britain is probably very highly developed with defense infrastructure already, but the Norwegian Ocean have been a favorite place for USA-Soviet/Russia submarines to do cat and mouse playing for decades. This can clearly not continue, if the whole of Northern Europe is going to depend on electricity from fragile, easily destroyed farms and cables. A submarine defense system will have to be enforced into the area. Something that will be more easy once Sweden are accepted as the final piece of the chessboard, making St. Petersburg and the maritime advantage it once had, into a non-issue, since the Baltic is shallow and more easily monitored.

As an aside, the Dogger Bank was likely inhabited by humans for tens of thousands of years before it flooded. If they end up digging footings out there, I hope there's archaeologists involved.

As of the posting of this video’s public release 15 mins ago from this post, the UK is currently running on 63% wind. The next biggest is nuclear at 15.5%

Shirvan you nailed it again. Love the informative maps and descriptions of amazing multilayered futuristic cleantech plans for the North Sea.

If they can mass produce wave power generators, we maybe can see another revolution within the energy environment.

Interesting. The Scottish independence thing is a bit of a red herring as it looks increasingly unlikely, ever more so as North Sea oil production declines. While it is true Brexit complicates matters there is every reason to believe its impact on strategic cooperation will recede.

Wow. Caspian Report keep surprising me by the depth of his research and the balanced arguments Totally get the limits

Although solar power plants have limited dispatch period without batteries, wind offers better renewable potential in many terms