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Norman, we most certainly don't expect them to be more reliable than gas turbines, and this is one reason we have adopted the strategy of making them as accessible for maintenance and repair as possible.

Gas turbines are a very mature technology and have an enviable reliability record, but as you say, they do consume vast quantities of gas, which in the main comes from natural gas resources - definitely not renewable! There are some that use gas fuel derived from biomass, which as you say, compete with food production for crop growing area – fortunately these are few and far between for good reason.

However, if a 380MW gas turbine has a problem you lose an awful lot of power in one hit. In the equivalent capacity tidal farm of 38 Triton systems there will be a total of 228, 1.7MW turbines. If a turbine goes down it will only reduce total output by about 0.5%. I agree a failure of a tidal turbine is going to be far more likely than a gas turbine (until tidal turbines get to the same stage of maturity), but it is highly unlikely all 380MW would be lost at once. I hope this helps.