Dear editor - I have read several items concerning the deployment of a wave 'power station' off the coast of Pembrokeshire and understand that it was recently awarded £5million of Objective One aid.

While I am very supportive of renewable technologies and especially those designed to harness the huge potential of the seas, I am slightly puzzled at the award being given to wave Dragon a very large floating device designed to capture waves. As I understand it, harnessing wave energy with rigid structures is fraught with difficulty, and harnessing tidal streams is considered to be more reliable, less obtrusive and less likely to be broken up by the harsh environment. Wave Dragon would seem to be a very inelegant, clumsy structure hardly suited to the seas off Pembrokeshire with their Special Area of Conservation designation. It wasn't long ago a trial was made of a tidal stream generator in the Cleddau estuary, with the aim of developing a sea-based generator that would have been ideally suited for location off the Pembrokeshire coast. Apparently the Welsh coast has one of the best tidal resources in the world. What then has happened to that project? There is a barrage approach but this is expensive technology which has major environmental impact. Wave Dragon would appear to be quite vulnerable to the fierce seas off our coast, with arm like attachments designed to channel the wave up a ramp into a reservoir. How will it be moored, and for what proportion of time it will actually be generating energy? Waves are certainly not as predictable as tidal streams and should it break its moorings what a colossal piece of equipment to possibly come into contact with shipping. I cannot quite understand the process that has allowed a rather clumsy wave generator, over and above a local idea that seemed, on the face of it, a better concept more suited to the ecologically sensitive coastline of Pembrokeshire.

Dr R. Burns St Thomas' Green Haverfordwest.