RENEWABLE ENERGY: A SHAMEFUL INDICTMENT OF UK GOVERNMENT, FINANCE AND INDUSTRY.

The British Isles are probably the world's biggest opportunity for developing natural renewable energy. No other location has such a rich combination of wind, tides and waves. The building and installation programme for wind turbines on the East coast of Britain is getting into top gear. A huge wind farm is scheduled for the North East coast in 2012.

Good news for Britain? Maybe for electricity consumers, but not for anyone else.

Rather it is a gross and shameful indictment of government, industry and finance. Not one of the thousands of turbines will be designed or built in Britain.

Instead most will be built in Denmark by Siemens a German company and shipped very expensively across the North Sea to Britain. The only bright spot is the news that Siemens may build a factory in Britain, near to the location of the massive wind farms.

British investors and British technology companies are nowhere to be seen. Government has spent years boasting about "how Britain leads the world" in wind generated power without spending a penny encouraging British manufacturers to set up in Britain. The German and Danish governments directly supported green energy technologies to develop, creating many thousands of skilled jobs.

It is a disgrace that the British government did not follow suit, leaving it instead to "the market", which instead wasted billions on speculation and gambling with the publics' money.

Until government realises that everybody else in the world understands that government has a crucial role in developing new technologies, British people will be consigned to a life working in low skilled service and leisure jobs.