Energy
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The UK is a leading generator of renewable energy and has Europe's top wind, wave and tidal sources. We provide more than two and a half million homes with energy from wind turbines, with over 700 offshore turbines.
The government's Renewable Energy Roadmap will ensure that 15 per cent of our energy is provided by renewable sources by 2020. Over a quarter of a million people in the UK are currently employed in renewable energy industries, a figure set to double by 2020.
England pioneers research in renewable energy technologies, for example, at the University of Loughborough's CREST research centre. UK university partners also back the SuperGen UK Centre for Marine Energy Research (UKCMER), which looks at exploiting marine energy.
With its petroleum port and easy access to North Sea refineries, the Humber area trailblazes the renewable energy path.
Twenty per cent of the country's natural gas and 32 per cent of our coal imports already come via the Humber. Big players like Total, BP, Centrica and ConocoPhillips are based here.
Nearby, the Leeds region leads the way in the low carbon sector.
Scientists at Cambridge Nuclear Energy Centre, the Centre for Nuclear Engineering at Imperial College London, the National Nuclear Laboratory, the Nuclear Advanced
Manufacturing Research Centre led by the universities of Sheffield and Manchester and the Nuclear Decommissioning Research Centre in Cumbria are on the case with nuclear power developments. Investments of £50 billion in new reactors in the next 20 years could mean that nuclear power provides 30 per cent of UK electricity by 2030.
Centres of excellence for Energy
Cambridge, NewcastleGateshead, Northumberland & County Durham, Hull & East Yorkshire, Leeds, Leicestershire, London & South East England