It all begins with searching the web and reading the newspaper. Next thing you know I find myself talking to my older brother on the phone. He works for the University of Exeter as an energy and environmental engineer and immediately seemed to be the best source of information considering the task at hand.

In fact choosing one news story out of the many possible environment stories there were proofed to be the hardest part for me.

After dismissing several stories – some due to lack of email response, others for mere economic reasons, or lack of newsworthiness – the decision was between two rather controversial topics:

1) The famous and everlasting Wave Hub project and

2) The planned re-opening of Redruth’s South Crofty Mine

Assessing the information I managed to collect on both these stories I made up a list of questions to compare the two.  Among the questions I asked myself were the following:

• What’s new/controversial about it?
• Have there been current discussions?
• What international angles are there?

After stumbling across the fact, that the Wave Hub project – that has been funded by millions of pounds by the UK government as well as the EU over more than nine years – was still not being used, although it was connected to the national grid and literally ready to go, I thought I had a story. Especially as I couldn’t find any satisfying answers to the question WHY it wasn’t being used.

On top of that: While the Wave Hub project was all set up and finally ready to produce thousands of megawatts of carbon neutral electricity (according to developers “enough for 7.500 homes”) some thousand kilometers north energy companies heavily invested in setting up new marine energy parks in Scotland.

Well: time to get the facts right and the questions sorted and direct them to the right interviewee…