Last week’s poll: UK low-carbon priorities

In light of the UK's stated goal of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, we asked Engineer readers what mode of low-carbon energy should be the country's main focus.

Garnering nearly a third of all votes (32%), nuclear enegy was the clear favourite. Despite the difficuties currently plaguing nuclear new build, a signifcant proportion clearly see it - alongside the potential of nuclear fusion - as the UK's best route to a low-carbon future. The next most popular choice (22%) was energy storage, vital to optimise the contribution of all renewables to the grid. Perhaps surpsingly, offshore wind was backed by just a fifth of repsondents. Wind (onshore and offshore) currently makes the largest contribution to the UK's energy mix of all low-carbon sources, and its generation capacity is set to continue to grow significantly in the coming years as new offshore farms come online.

Further down the pecking order came marine power (12%), a source of energy with huge potential but which is releatively underdeveloped compared with other renewables like solar and hydro, both of which polled at just five per cent. The 'none of the above' option was chosen by four per cent of readers.