Go Back   Wild About Britain > Environment Forums > Energy Forums

» Log in

User Name:

Password:

Not a member yet?
Register Now!

» March 2010

S M T W T F S
28 1 2 3 4 5 6
7 8 9 10 11 12 13
14 15 16 17 18 19 20
21 22 23 24 25 26 27
28 29 30 31 123

» Stats

Members: 34,099
Threads: 51,302
Posts: 561,188
Top Poster: glsammy (13,488)
Welcome to our newest member, matarius777
Welcome to the Wild About Britain forums
Reply

 

LinkBack Thread Tools Display Modes
  #1 (permalink)  
Old 01-10-2007, 09:07 AM
Frozen
 
Join Date: Apr 2007
Location: The sunny West Midlands.
Posts: 1,143
Severn barrage

Apparently the Severn Barrage will generate about 6% of the countrys power. This seems an ideal oppurtunity to go a little greener , but there will be a huge loss of habitat.

What do the members think ? Good or bad?

Keith.
Digg this Post!Add Post to del.icio.usBookmark Post in TechnoratiFurl this Post!
Reply With Quote
  #2 (permalink)  
Old 01-10-2007, 10:11 AM
paulchandler6's Avatar
Commander of the Wild Empire
 
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: South Oxfordshire
Posts: 1,379
Blog Entries: 5
Re: Severn barrage

Surely there must be the technology around to do both, or would it be too expensive? FOE say about the creation of tidal lagoons to lessen the impact on the environment so why cant the whole area still be tidal and allow the flow to pass back and forwards thru the barrage to generate power. I admit I do not know enough about the system to give a qualified opinion.

Paul
__________________
Don't blow it - good planets are hard to find.
Digg this Post!Add Post to del.icio.usBookmark Post in TechnoratiFurl this Post!
Reply With Quote
  #3 (permalink)  
Old 01-10-2007, 01:15 PM
solus's Avatar
Officer of the Wild Empire
 
Join Date: Oct 2006
Location: Gloucester
Posts: 840
Re: Severn barrage

Disastrous, in my view!

If this scheme goes ahead, it will destroy huge areas of internationally important, and internationally protected, habitat which attracts millions of wild birds to feed and winter (as well as the visitors this brings to the area) and it will mean 'Goodbye' to the Severn Bore and the many visitors who come to watch that spectacle too.
With a £14billion outlay (which, if recent examples such as the Scottish Parliament buliding and the London Olympics are anything to go by, will become a far greater sum in reality) to generate only an estimated 5 or 6% or the country's electricity it will take quite some time to pay for itself.... I was never very good at maths but this does seem to be a very costly option...
Digg this Post!Add Post to del.icio.usBookmark Post in TechnoratiFurl this Post!
Reply With Quote
  #4 (permalink)  
Old 01-10-2007, 01:18 PM
zharca's Avatar
Wild Member
 
Join Date: Feb 2007
Posts: 223
Re: Severn barrage

hi, that 6% of energy might sound impressive, but it's only a third of the amount we are going to lose as our current old nuclear plants are closed.

All the "alternative" technologies have a very low energy density: size-for-size they really don't produce much power.

I'm very much in favour of new nuclear plants provided we use the right technology. In the past, the choice of design has been heavily influneced, first by military needs for fissile material and then by commercial ones by companies like Westinghouse.
I think there are few alternatives that can generate serious amounts of electricity: Hydro if you're lucky enough to live near Niagara or are prepared to flood a big bit of your country, biofuel if you don't mind half the world being turned into vast monoculture, the obvious coal/oil which is the cause of all our troubles, geothermal if you can wait until it stops being science fiction, or hydrogen if you don't believe in physics.

I reckon wave, tide and wind can only supply enough power if we don't actually want to turn any lights on!
Digg this Post!Add Post to del.icio.usBookmark Post in TechnoratiFurl this Post!
Reply With Quote
  #5 (permalink)  
Old 01-10-2007, 01:35 PM
Active Member
 
Join Date: Aug 2006
Location: As the name suggests, in the Chilterns
Posts: 97
Re: Severn barrage

Barrages for hydropower basically store potential energy and then convert that energy into electrical power in a controlled way via turbines. The problem for the wildlife is that the estuary’s biodiversity is dependant on that energy being processed via physical processes in the same way year after year. The barrage fundamentally changes how the energy passes though the environment i.e. the barrage changes the erosion and deposition patterns within the estuary, changes the nutrient balances, water quality and temperature of the water, changes the amount of mudflat / saltmarsh available and the length of time both aquatic and terrestrial flora and fauna can use the various estuarine habitats and species migration is heavily compromised.

The Severn estuary, in energy terms is a reasonably natural system. The natural processes created by the energy passing through the system have created a dynamic but naturally sustaining system (ignoring Climate Change). To compensate for this we need to map and understand how the present estuary works and then replicate that elsewhere. As far as I know we don’t have the science to do this or a spare comparable estuary to use for compensation. Therefore, I’m with the RSPB on this and definitely in the ‘anti’ camp.

I think it will be nigh on impossible to compensate for this site of international importance and if you can’t compensate, then it’s not sustainable development. It’s obviously a quick fix for one sustainability target (CO2 emissions), but we mustn’t sacrifice something that’s irreplaceable when there are other more sustainable ways of meeting our targets – it’s just that they’re not as popular because it might mean taking fewer cheap flights, walking the kids to school, running only one car per household etc.

The report on the BBC this morning was quite confusing as they said that ‘environmentalists’ were split over whether a barrage should go ahead or not. They then had the ‘anti’ view from the RSPB and then a ‘pro’ view from someone they called an ‘environmental activist’. Now we all know who the RSPB are but who does the ‘environmental activist’ represent? He let it slip that he was part of SERA, which from what I can work out is basically a labour party environmental think tank. So who was this environmental activist representing? was it himself, the government, the labour party, SERA, I have no idea apart from the fact that he was obviously partisan and not saying who he was representing i.e. it could have been the government trying to covertly influence the debate by undermining the environmental argument because they know it’ll be an environmental disaster if this goes ahead. The BBC wouldn’t do an interview saying politicians are split over an issue and here are their views, without saying which politician represented which party, so why are they doing it with environmental issues?

Cheers, Chris
Digg this Post!Add Post to del.icio.usBookmark Post in TechnoratiFurl this Post!
Reply With Quote
  #6 (permalink)  
Old 02-10-2007, 09:22 AM
Frozen
 
Join Date: Apr 2007
Location: The sunny West Midlands.
Posts: 1,143
Re: Severn barrage

This from Marinet, the marine network of the Friends of the Earth.
A Tidal Barrage for the Severn estuary is again a hot issue, with Britain's need to rapidly build up renewable energy generation. Barry lies close to the landfall of the proposed mega-barrage and the local FoE group (Barry & Vale) have looked into the various options. Our preference is for tidal current turbines, but we see the debate as continuing.
The rest of the article can be found here .....
MARINET : Renewable Energy from the Sea : Tidal Power in the Severn?

It's well worth a read.

Keith.
Digg this Post!Add Post to del.icio.usBookmark Post in TechnoratiFurl this Post!
Reply With Quote
  #7 (permalink)  
Old 02-10-2007, 12:53 PM
juliejam's Avatar
Commander of the Wild Empire
 
Join Date: Oct 2006
Location: Hertfordshire..
Posts: 2,489
Re: Severn barrage

What do we feel is more important the destruction of a
valuable wildlife habitat to be able to generation just 6% of the
countries electricity..

Is this a reasonable trade off..?

Would the answer be to find even more ways of helping us conserve
more of our anergy..

Julie
__________________
A Promise isn't kept until Its Delivered.
Digg this Post!Add Post to del.icio.usBookmark Post in TechnoratiFurl this Post!
Reply With Quote
  #8 (permalink)  
Old 02-10-2007, 01:21 PM
zharca's Avatar
Wild Member
 
Join Date: Feb 2007
Posts: 223
Thumbs down Re: Severn barrage

Hi, just skimmed through it and I can see:

- a large and important part of our coastline will be lost forever
- very large tracts of South Wales get turned into quarry pits to supply the raw materials
- big redesign of the grid to take huge fluctuations of output into account

- The estimates of its output in terms of USEFUL power are pretty nonsensical, because electricity generation is controlled by the tides, not demand. So it may be generating at odd hours of the day/night with its peak output in warm weather and minimums in the winter. Because of this, it looks as if they need to build a whole lot of backup stations to take over the load.

If we must have backup stations to take the load every day when the barrage doesn't generate and they stand idle while it does, we don't need the barrage at all.

The figures have been fudged. Cost esimates at 6p-kW (2001 prices!), but selling to the National grid at 2.7p-kW, which includes .7p for "secure supply", even though it can't be turned on/off on demand. Looks as if the rest of the cost is going to be made up by us footing the bill for a big "flood barrier". At its peak output maybe 50% could be wasted because there's no way to match to peak demand.

So really: it's environmentally disastrous, it doesn't supply electricity when needed, it's very expensive per kW and it's not scalable (you can't build Severn B next to it when you want more output). Apart from that, fine.
Digg this Post!Add Post to del.icio.usBookmark Post in TechnoratiFurl this Post!
Reply With Quote
  #9 (permalink)  
Old 02-10-2007, 04:04 PM
solus's Avatar
Officer of the Wild Empire
 
Join Date: Oct 2006
Location: Gloucester
Posts: 840
Re: Severn barrage

There is now a petition collecting signatures against the Barrage proposal on the Government's 10 Downing Street petitions site.

Petition to: Stop any plans to build a severn barrage.
Digg this Post!Add Post to del.icio.usBookmark Post in TechnoratiFurl this Post!
Reply With Quote
  #10 (permalink)  
Old 02-10-2007, 05:34 PM
Ukwildlifeo's Avatar
Commander of the Wild Empire
 
Join Date: Mar 2007
Location: Romford, Essex
Posts: 3,290
Re: Severn barrage

The problem I have with this is that as well as destroying a lot of important tidal habitat, wont the productivity and absorbtion of CO2 into the sediment go down, possibly leaving more CO2 in the atmosphere than a power station would put out?
__________________
UK wildlife blog
Digg this Post!Add Post to del.icio.usBookmark Post in TechnoratiFurl this Post!
Reply With Quote
  #11 (permalink)  
Old 02-10-2007, 05:49 PM
nightshade's Avatar
Knight Commander of the Wild Empire
 
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: N.E.SOMERSET
Posts: 7,201
Re: Severn barrage

Whatever the cost we will take the moral highground regarding Carbon saving
we will kill off wildlife left right and centre while the largest countries on the planet
do nothing, there is no justice
__________________
You cannot maintain an ecology, if you lose any of the pieces.
Digg this Post!Add Post to del.icio.usBookmark Post in TechnoratiFurl this Post!
Reply With Quote
  #12 (permalink)  
Old 02-10-2007, 09:29 PM
zharca's Avatar
Wild Member
 
Join Date: Feb 2007
Posts: 223
Re: Severn barrage

What I'm seeing with this isn't an environmentally driven project, but some fairly big interested parties who see massive, long-term construction projects and then many billions of government (our) money to support something that will never make commercial sense.
Digg this Post!Add Post to del.icio.usBookmark Post in TechnoratiFurl this Post!
Reply With Quote
  #13 (permalink)  
Old 03-10-2007, 11:03 AM
PMG's Avatar
PMG PMG is offline
Commander of the Wild Empire
 
Join Date: Aug 2006
Location: Leigh, Lancashire
Posts: 3,722
Re: Severn barrage

Absolute disaster as would the same thing be on the Ribble or Morecambe Bay, the Wash etc and for all the same reasons. Have signed the petition. I wish the government were honest about these kind of things and admit they haven't a clue about what to do for the best - basically Pandoras Box is open and things are out of control and set to get worse cos foolish people are in charge - and some of us put them there (not me - I don't vote and I'd have everyone not vote - then maybe we could have a different way of running the country . . .) Sorry can hear a rant coming on - must go away and do something else - cos this subject gets my goat . . .

Pauline
Digg this Post!Add Post to del.icio.usBookmark Post in TechnoratiFurl this Post!
Reply With Quote
  #14 (permalink)  
Old 03-10-2007, 01:55 PM
Frozen
 
Join Date: Apr 2007
Location: The sunny West Midlands.
Posts: 1,143
Re: Severn barrage

I hope it doesn't get the go ahead ( I think it's about 14 years away ). But there's a lot of money involved and wildlife so often takes a back seat to 'progress'.
With our governments record of underestimation I wonder what the final bill might be. They've estimated £14 Bn, so £200 Bn would be a fair guess!

The planned barrage would be some ten miles long, that's a hell of a lot of nature to be interfering with. Surely we can make savings of 3% on our energy needs, and draw another 3% from wave, wind, and solar power? This barrage seems like taking a sledge hammer to crack a nut. It's only going to produce power for about 5 hours a day.


Keith.
Digg this Post!Add Post to del.icio.usBookmark Post in TechnoratiFurl this Post!
Reply With Quote
Reply  

Bookmarks

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Trackbacks are On
Pingbacks are On
Refbacks are On


» New Wildlife Posts

Go to first new post bullocks
Last post by Sprout
Today 03:19 PM
9 Replies, 58 Views
Go to first new post Rarest Bird?
Last post by ChrisJB
Today 03:18 PM
31 Replies, 510 Views
Go to first new post Frogs and frogspawn
Last post by GFM
Today 03:17 PM
133 Replies, 2,841 Views
Go to first new post Help with fungi ID please
Last post by Taryn
Today 03:12 PM
5 Replies, 55 Views
Go to first new post American Robin
Last post by John
Today 03:08 PM
9 Replies, 840 Views
Go to first new post Chaffinch warts?
Last post by ania
Today 02:52 PM
0 Replies, 6 Views
Go to first new post Help, what are they...
Last post by Monkey Orchid
Today 02:47 PM
5 Replies, 67 Views
Go to first new post Any Frogs Spawn in ...
Last post by Dan Salter
Today 02:34 PM
198 Replies, 2,805 Views

» New Environment Posts

Go to first new post Nuclear Power Station...
Last post by animartco
Today 02:34 PM
164 Replies, 2,837 Views
Go to first new post Warm fusion = free clean...
Last post by Doggle Avaddit
Yesterday 09:13 PM
91 Replies, 1,696 Views
Go to first new post How to Recycle your...
Last post by posie
17-03-2010 08:47 AM
6 Replies, 485 Views
Go to first new post what do you think is the...
Last post by tom00_uk
14-03-2010 04:30 AM
18 Replies, 505 Views

» New Activity Posts

Go to first new post Remote IR Cameras & the...
Last post by JeffH
Today 02:43 PM
3 Replies, 95 Views
Go to first new post WAB Members' Garden...
Last post by aeshna5
Today 02:26 PM
336 Replies, 21,659 Views
Go to first new post New Job!
Last post by diggleken
Today 01:48 PM
20 Replies, 186 Views
Go to first new post Vine weevil attack -...
Last post by Cotham Marble
Today 09:21 AM
5 Replies, 70 Views

» New Community Posts

Go to first new post Calling WABers in...
Last post by posie
Today 01:22 PM
1 Replies, 21 Views
Go to first new post Osprey meet, Rutland...
Last post by mrcheeky
Today 09:47 AM
47 Replies, 1,157 Views
Go to first new post Harbour Seal does daring...
Last post by Jaeviatrix
Yesterday 12:00 PM
4 Replies, 159 Views
Go to first new post A tv date for your...
Last post by artdemole
18-03-2010 02:40 PM
3 Replies, 158 Views

All times are GMT. The time now is 03:19 PM.


Copyright Wild About Britain 2009

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309 310 311 312 313 314 315 316 317 318 319 320 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 332 333 334 335 336 337 338 339 340 341 342 343 344 345 346 347 348 349 350 351 352 353 354 355 356 357 358 359 360 361 362 363 364 365 366 367 368 369 370 371 372 373 374 375 376 377 378 379 380 381 382 383 384 385 386 387 388 389 390 391 392 393 394 395 396 397 398 399 400 401 402 403 404 405 406 407 408 409 410 411 412 413 414 415 416 417 418 419 420 421 422 423 424 425 426 427 428 429 430 431 432 433 434 435 436 437 438 439 440 441 442 443 444 445 446 447 448 449 450 451 452 453 454 455 456 457 458 459 460 461 462 463 464 465 466 467 468 469 470 471 472 473 474 475 476 477 478 479 480 481 482 483 484 485 486 487 488 489 490 491 492 493 494 495 496 497 498 499 500 501 502 503 504 505 506 507 508 509 510 511 512 513 514 515 516 517 518 519 520 521 522 523 524 525 526 527 528 529 530 531 532 533 534 535 536 537 538 539 540 541 542 543 544 545 546 547 548 549 550 551 552 553 554 555 556 557 558 559 560 561 562 563 564 565 566 567 568 569 570 571 572 573 574 575 576 577 578 579 580 581 582 583 584 585 586 587 588 589 590 591 592 593 594 595 596 597 598 599 600 601 602 603 604 605 606 607 608 609 610 611 612 613 614 615 616 617 618 619 620 621 622 623 624 625 626 627 628 629 630 631 632 633 634 635 636 637 638 639 640 641 642 643 644 645 646 647 648 649 650 651 652 653 654 655 656 657 658 659 660 661 662 663 664 665 666 667 668 669 670 671 672 673 674 675 676 677 678 679 680 681 682 683 684 685 686 687 688 689 690 691 692 693