The Crown Estate and Clipper have agreed to terminate the contract they signed in 2008, in which the Crown Estate invested in Clipper’s project and committed itself to buying the first prototype of the turbine.

Peter Christman, president of Pratt & Whitney Power Systems, the subsidiary of United Technologies (UTC) that now controls Clipper, tells Recharge: “What was envisaged as the Britannia programme is on hold.

“We