Colin Donald's excellent article on Scotland's attempt to become a world leader in marine power technology certainly highlighted the high waste of public and private investment that has gone into this sector in the last decade or so (How to make waves, Business, September 6).

The drive to find new engineering solutions distracted the Government from investing in reliable, predictable marine power which can only be found in the construction of tidal barrage or tidal lagoon power stations.

This is nothing more than a hydro-electric power station but built in tidal waters where twice a day, 365 days of the year, the generating company knows almost exactly the timing and the output of the turbines.

No country in the world is better suited to developing this electricity generation and we have known that for probably 50 years now, and to date, done nothing with that knowledge.

Alex Dickson,

Inverkirkaig