Every few years, for decades, proposals to build a tidal power generating barrage across the Severn Estuary have achieved prominence. The idea of capturing some of the massive energy of the tide (the second highest in the world – behind North America’s Bay of Fundy) has proved beguiling.
And rightly so – all that renewable energy is a prize worth striving for - here's Geoffery Lean in the Telegraph.
But technology and innovation have so far been overwhelmed by the idea of building a huge concrete wall across the Estuary punctuated by gaps housing turbines that generate the energy. The big, bad barrage idea brings with it a range of impacts – often swept away in the initial enthusiasm but revealed as the details emerge. Cost, massive effects on the coastal environment including flooding downstream, risks to nature including the loss of habitats vital for the survival of migrating wildfowl and fish all start to undermine initial confidence.
And for the Severn the fish are very, very significant.
Concrete walls punctuated by turbines are likely to be very bad news for fish.
Today these concerns are backed, powerfully by a report from the Energy and Climate Change Select Committee which has concluded that the latest big barrage idea proposed by Hafren Power, has failed to make the economic case for a barrage, failed to persuade the Committee that it wouldn’t harm jobs, and failed to answer serious environmental concerns. Here's Fiona Harvey in the Guardian
The Severn is Britain’s biggest estuary and supports significant communities and industries alongside internationally important populations of birds and fish within its outstanding landscape.The Select Committee report sends a powerful signal that it is time to end the waste of time and money squandered on assessing barrages that should have no future – and start investing in innovation.The committee report comes just days after the Parliamentary Office for Science and Technology published a note setting out the impacts of tidal barrages for MPs and Lords, and de-bunking some of the unsubstantiated claims made by the Hafren Power consortium.
Environmental groups, engineers and decision-makers are already discussing more innovative approaches to tidal power in the Severn Estuary.
Back in April The Sustainable Severn conference was held in Bristol, demonstrating a clear consensus for environmentally acceptable renewable energy developments as part of a wider vision for the sustainable future of the Severn estuary, and more meetings are planned for the future. If, at last, the hopeless pursuit of the wrong option can now be set aside there is the chance that the Severn can play a role in the renewable energy revolution needed to tackle the risks of a chaotic climate whilst safeguarding its vulnerable natural heritage.
The RSPB has joined with a consortium of organisations to react to today’s Select Committee report including the Angling Trust, CPRE, RSPB, Severn Rivers Trust, the Wildlife Trusts, Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust and WWF.
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