Severn Barrage

[tpm]

There's also a thread in the Home Counties & South West England forum btw.

PS: the airport proposal is superb

[Delirium]

Really fits in with the green image they're trying to project.

[TJF]

We really should do this. 5% of the UKs electricity requirements is massive, and modern tidal energy technology has progressed a lot in terms of environmental impact. Doubt anything's going to happen though - we've been considering Seven Estuary electricity generation since 1925!

[Tinpusher]

Originally Posted by Bob

...and it's back again
from bbc

Environmentalists always make me chuckle when it comes to the need for renewables.

They harp on and on about the need for less CO2 emissions and more renewables, and usually demonstrate their scientific ignorance by photoshopping mushroom clouds behind pictures of Sizewell B, but whenever the government puts a proposal forward they change the record and start bemoaning the damage caused by this project.

Turbines, wah wah visual intrusion, noise pollution, think of the birds.
Solar, wah wah the CO2 cost in constructing them, visual intrusion.
hydor, wah wah the CO2 cost in constructing dams, the landscapes lost forever, think of the fish.
Barrage, wah wah the CO2 cost in constructin it, the landscape lost, think of the birds and fish and mudflats.

SHUT UP or get in the mass grave I've made you dig yourself.

Progress is happening, and needs to happen to continue the species, either get on board or die out.

[master2k27]

Originally Posted by Tinpusher

Environmentalists always make me chuckle when it comes to the need for renewables.

They harp on and on about the need for less CO2 emissions and more renewables, and usually demonstrate their scientific ignorance by photoshopping mushroom clouds behind pictures of Sizewell B, but whenever the government puts a proposal forward they change the record and start bemoaning the damage caused by this project.

Turbines, wah wah visual intrusion, noise pollution, think of the birds.
Solar, wah wah the CO2 cost in constructing them, visual intrusion.
hydor, wah wah the CO2 cost in constructing dams, the landscapes lost forever, think of the fish.
Barrage, wah wah the CO2 cost in constructin it, the landscape lost, think of the birds and fish and mudflats.

SHUT UP or get in the mass grave I've made you dig yourself.

Progress is happening, and needs to happen to continue the species, either get on board or die out.

I call my self a Environmentalist but I totally agree with you.

[Jon10]

Sunday Telegraph:



"An extraordinary picture of the state of our public life has come to light in recent days, in accounts of the involvement of some of our most senior politicians in the vast, lucrative and expanding industry of 'renewable energy'.

At the centre of the picture is David Cameron, who last month nominated Lord Deben (formerly John Gummer) as the new chairman of the influential and supposedly 'independent' Committee on Climate Change. ...

Mr Cameron has also lately taken a very active interest in a new £30 billion project for a tidal barrage across the Severn estuary, which he discussed at Downing Street last month with the former Labour Cabinet minister Peter Hain, acting on behalf of a consortium organised by a tiny Welsh company, Corlan Hafren – of which Deben was until very recently a director."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/9...n-barrage.html
.

[Tallsmurf]

Originally Posted by Jon10

Sunday Telegraph:

....., acting on behalf of a consortium organised by a tiny Welsh company, Corlan Hafren....."

.

Corlan Hafren is a company set up specifically to promote the barrage which includes the engineering giant Halcrow among its backers..

It is a tiny company only in the same way as Channel Tunnel Rail Link, or HS2 Ltd....It is called a special purpose company..

[ill tonkso]

Either way, I support it. Anything that has the potential to power most of the region with renewables AND solve the Severn Tunnel problem (a new tunnel within the barrage below lock level?) has my support. Shame we can't tap into Baths geothermal too. That's supposed to have enough to power both Bath and Bristol alone.

[banana republic]

Free energy (OK at an initial cost), that never stops.
It has to be a no brainer.

Having recently visited the Lake District and seen the vast offshore wind farm arrays, off Barrow and in the Solway Firth, I was mightily impressed; but no so impressed to see that half the windmills were not turning and those that were appeared to be very slow.

Meanwhile the tide comes and goes and the strong estuary currents run back and forth, relentlessly and without interruption.

Have I missed something here?


Similarly, there's an old water powered Mill down the road from here. It's now a restaurant, the old mill wheel long out of use.
There's a small wind turbine in the garden, that spends most of its time standing idle. Meanwhile the fast flowing river continues to stream by, an un-tapped ready supply of potential energy, surely ideal for a modern small turbine....and it never stops ?????

I'm no expert, but surely the cost/benefit ratio of exploiting these resources is worth a punt?

[CharlieP]

Originally Posted by banana republic

Similarly, there's an old water powered Mill down the road from here. It's now a restaurant, the old mill wheel long out of use.
There's a small wind turbine in the garden, that spends most of its time standing idle. Meanwhile the fast flowing river continues to stream by, an un-tapped ready supply of potential energy, surely ideal for a modern small turbine....and it never stops ?????

Ideal for a modern small turbine, yes. The Severn Barrage, as I understand it, is more analogous to bricking up the fast flowing river, causing silt to pile up on one side and giving all other sorts of serious ecological knock-on effects.

I'd like to see farms of "ducks", i.e. those hinge-like things that just sit in the sea and produce electricity every time the waves make them bend in the middle.

[banana republic]

Originally Posted by CharlieP

I'd like to see farms of "ducks", i.e. those hinge-like things that just sit in the sea and produce electricity every time the waves make them bend in the middle.

Wouldn't those free standing water turbines be a lot more productive, placed where there are regular strong currents or tidal flows?

The nodding ducks rely on the waves which are surely too variable and unpredictable? The nodding motion is too slow and it must require hundreds of the darn things to get anything useful from them.