Britannia Radio

It's probably time that I exposed readers to the full lunacies of the 
Green Climate Change /. Global Warming fanatics of which the Indie is 
a fully paid-up frothing-at-the-mouth member.

  I do this for  three reasons:-
1. is that here are setout in the midst of the propaganda the 
government's proposals  fir the Severn Estuary.  Now the idea of a 
Severn Barrage or its variants are extremely interesting in their own 
right as something on this scale will make a considerable difference 
to the dependence of Britain on foreign oil and gas from unfriendly 
countries; and-
2. The Greens are here quarreling over this and idiots (or thieves) 
fall out the spectacle is always worth watching!
3. I am personally fascinated because my eldest brother when at 
University drew up engineering plans for  this barrage.  That was in 
1935 - 73 years ago! We don't rush things here, do we?

xxxxxxxxxxx cs
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INDEPENDENT   26.1.09
The great divide: Green dilemma over plans for Severn barrage

Britain's biggest engineering project since the Channel tunnel 
threatens to divide the environmental movement

By Michael McCarthy, Environment Editor

[Picture]  is the Severn Estuary, where plans were unveiled yesterday 
for a barrage that would use tidal power to meet 5 per cent of UK 
electricity needs. It is the world's biggest renewable energy 
project. So why is the green lobby against it?

Britain's environmental movement was yesterday presented with its 
starkest choice yet: whether or not to support the world's largest-
ever renewable energy project which will result in unprecedented 
ecological damage to one of our most important natural habitats.

The giant £20bn Severn barrage, which would stretch 10 miles from 
Lavernock Point near Cardiff to Brean Down near Weston-super-Mare, 
would harness the tides to generate up to 5 per cent of the UK's 
electricity needs - the equivalent of eight typical coal-fired power 
stations. This is crucially important in the fight against climate 
change.

But environmentalists fear that by blocking the Severn estuary 
completely, the barrage would destroy vast areas of mudflats and 
mashes, which are vital feeding grounds for tens of thousands of 
wading birds, and prevent migratory fish such as salmon and eels from 
ascending rivers to spawn. Other environmentalists think such a large 
project would divert resources away from other key renewable 
technologies such as wind power.

Yesterday the barrage appeared on a shortlist of five renewable 
energy schemes for the Severn estuary indicating that the project, 
which the Government is known to favour, is moving closer to formal 
acceptance. The shortlist will now be the subject of a public 
consultation and a final decision will be taken by 2010.

But the proposal is causing real difficulties for Britain's green 
movement, whose members are united in the need to take action against 
global warming, yet view with deep dismay the unprecedented 
ecological damage a Severn barrage would undoubtedly bring about. The 
dilemma could not be more acute: on the one hand, the prospect of 
more renewable energy from one place than is currently produced in 
the entire UK; on the other, the virtual wiping out of one of 
Britain's most important wildlife sites. The dilemma will only 
increase as the imperative of countering climate change with major 
developments runs up against the damage to the natural world which 
such large-scale schemes may cause.

The Government's official green advisers, the Sustainable Development 
Commission, thinks the barrage should be built if it can pass two 
tests: that new wildlife habitats can be created to compensate for 
those lost and that the project remains in public ownership. The SDC 
favours it because with the Severn having the second highest tidal 
range in the world - the difference between high and low tides can be 
as much as 45ft - the energy-producing potential of a barrage is 
enormous, capable of generating more than eight gigawatts of power.

However, Friends of the Earth believe it would simply be too damaging 
and divert too much money that could be better spent fighting climate 
change in other ways. Greenpeace agrees it has potential but thinks 
the Government should give priority to wind power. [Don't they know 
it's a failure in performance and impossible to build in sufficiednt 
numbers?  -cs] The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, the 
Wildlife Trusts and the Government's own wildlife watchdog, Natural 
England, [WOT? No Newts? -cs] are all concerned over the impact on 
wildlife.

"It is hugely disappointing to see the Government still pushing 
forward with the environmentally destructive option of a Cardiff-
Weston barrage," said Martin Harper, the RSPB's head of sustainable 
development.
"Climate change threatens an environmental catastrophe for humans and 
wildlife and we urgently need to find low and zero carbon 
alternatives to our insatiable appetite for fossil fuels, so 
harnessing the huge tidal power of the Severn has to be right. But it 
cannot be right to trash the natural environment in the process. The 
final scheme must be the one that generates as much clean energy as 
possible while minimising harm to the estuary and its wildlife. We 
know the Cardiff-Weston Barrage would destroy huge areas of estuary 
marsh and mudflats used by 69,000 birds each winter and block the 
migration routes of countless fish."

Natural England's chief executive Helen Phillips said yesterday: 
"Tackling climate change requires us to make a step change in the way 
we think about renewable energy but we have to ensure that the 
decisions we make stand the test of time and do not leave a legacy of 
environmental destruction in their wake."

There is little doubt that a barrage would destroy more wildlife 
habitat than any other British construction project in modern times. 
The Severn Estuary, where the celebrated naturalist Sir Peter Scott 
founded Slimbridge, the wildfowl refuge which became one of the 
world's most famous nature reserves, provides an 86,000-acre feeding 
ground for wild swans, geese and many thousands of wading birds, such 
as dunlin, turnstone, oystercatcher and ringed plover, from all over 
Europe.

Under EU wildlife habitat laws, if the Government were to go ahead, 
it would have to find alternative compensatory habitat - mudflats and 
marshes - which might be as much as 40,000 acres, and which might 
cost anything up to £3bn.

But that is unlikely to hold the Government back, such will be the 
temptation to grab that massive 5 per cent renewable energy boost 
from a barrage - for in December ministers took on the enormous 
obligation, in an EU-wide deal, of sourcing 20 per cent of total UK 
energy demand from renewables by 2020. Twenty per cent of total 
energy (which includes heating and transport) means finding about 40 
per cent of electricity from renewables - nearly 10 times the current 
figure of about 4.5 per cent.

The Herculean size of that task means the Government is very likely 
to go for the barrage, especially as the onshore wind industry is 
suffering strongly from the rise in the euro against the pound, 
meaning turbines made in Germany and Denmark are now about a third 
dearer than they were a year ago.

Apart from the main barrage, four other shortlisted schemes were 
announced by the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, 
David Miliband, yesterday. They are: Shoots barrage, further upstream 
which would generate around 1GW; Beachley barrage, an even smaller 
scheme just above the river Wye, which would generate around 625MW; 
Bridgwater Bay lagoon, a proposal which would impound a section of 
the estuary on the coast from east of Hinkley Point to Weston-super-
Mare, which could generate 1.36GW and Fleming lagoon, a similar 
scheme which would generate the same amount of power from a section 
of the Welsh shore between Newport and the Severn road crossings.

Mr Miliband acknowledged fighting climate change involved "tough 
choices" and said: "The five schemes shortlisted are what we believe 
can be feasible but this doesn't mean we have lost sight of others. 
Half a million pounds of new funding will go some way to developing 
technologies still in their infancy, like tidal reefs and fences. We 
will consider the progress of this work before any final decisions 
are taken."

Is it the right decision to build the barrage?
Andrew Lee: Yes
Climate science is telling us that we will have to reduce our carbon 
emissions to near zero by 2050, if the rest of the world is to have 
any chance to develop at all, so we must take all options for Severn 
tidal power very seriously indeed. In our report Turning the Tide, 
the SDC felt that a Cardiff-Weston barrage could be sustainable if it 
passed two tough tests. The first is EU law: breaching the habitats 
and birds directives would set a dangerous precedent. The second is 
the public interest - we said that any scheme must be publicly 
managed and owned. The barrage is a player for 2050, as are the newly 
emerging tidal fence and tidal reef technologies which might have 
less environmental impact. Ironically, a smaller scheme could also 
have significant environmental impact, while being too small to help 
much in the energy mix and hived off entirely to the private sector 
to boot.  {So big government is supposed to be good? -cs]
Andrew Lee is chief executive of the Sustainable Development Commission

Gordon James: No
For the amount of energy produced, a Severn barrage would be too 
damaging to the ecological features and species of international 
importance in the estuary - even given that climate change and sea-
level rise would be gradually affecting habitats. At a cost of around 
£15bn it would be uneconomic, and public funds for "climate 
mitigation" projects could be better spent generating more energy in 
a shorter period of time from alternative renewable and or low-carbon 
schemes. The barrage would preclude the building of large tidal 
lagoon impoundments and other tidal schemes in the Severn estuary 
from Bridgwater Bay eastwards, which may amount to considerable 
electricity and storage potential, and it would generate large 
amounts of electricity in two pulses of around four hours each 
day,which would not necessarily match high demand, and create 
problems for the national grid.
Gordon James is a director of Friends of the Earth Cymru
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2. Leading article: A tough choice between energy and the environment

Ministers must not prejudge this consultation on the Severn Estuary

It is little wonder that the renewable energy industry has long been 
intrigued by the potential of the Severn Estuary. The natural power 
generated as the sea surges down this narrowing channel between 
Somerset and South Wales is quite phenomenal. It is estimated to be 
enough to generate as much as 5 per cent of Britain's annual energy 
requirements. Only the Bay of Fundy on the east coast of Canada 
produces more natural power. Yesterday the Government unveiled a 
shortlist of schemes, all designed to harness this tremendous natural 
force to generate electricity.

But it is equally small wonder that wildlife conservation charities 
are deeply wary of any large-scale energy projects being built in the 
Severn Estuary. The saltmarshes and mudflats of the Severn host an 
array of natural life. If the estuary is dammed, as some of the 
schemes envisage, the wetland ecosystem on which white-fronted geese, 
Bewick's swans and numerous wading birds survive would be changed 
beyond recognition. The fish stocks of the Severn, Wye and Usk rivers 
would be put under threat too.

The concerns of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and 
other wildlife groups over the future of this special conservation 
area should not be written off as reactionary "nimbyism". To 
sacrifice our natural environment in the pursuit of profit or 
convenience would be to embark on a short route to ruin.

Yet we cannot forget that the fate of more than one area of 
ecological diversity lies in the balance here. All the natural life 
on these islands will be adversely affected by the rising 
temperatures that runaway climate change will bring ["WILL" ? MAD!  
It's getting colder allthe time and has been since the millennium -
cs]  , including those species which presently thrive in the Severn 
Estuary. The rapid development and expansion of renewable energies 
represents one of mankind's best hopes for averting that disaster.

Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, Ed Miliband, struck 
the right tone yesterday by arguing that "tough choices" lie ahead. 
The various schemes will be put out to public consultation over the 
next three months. And a feasibility study will report back next 
year. We should not prejudge those exercises. But at the same time we 
need to be realistic. It would be no surprise if the benefits of 
harnessing the tidal power of the estuary is judged to outweigh its 
undoubted ecological cost. This Estuary accounts for 80 per cent of 
the UK's tidal resources [Untrue!  If tidal flows were used instead 
other areas could contribute massively -cs] . For the Government to 
reject all of these schemes would severely reduce the likelihood of 
Britain meeting its national renewable energy targets, perhaps 
fatally. If our Government is serious about curtailing climate 
change, it has to be serious about renewable power generation.

But precisely since a green light is in prospect, it is vital that 
the Government runs this consultation period fairly. Some 
conservation groups argue that constructing tidal lagoons to generate 
power would be significantly less damaging to wildlife than building 
a barrage. Yet there have been accusations that some in Government 
have already decided that damming the estuary is the only show in town.

This suspicion is dangerous. The various schemes must have a level 
playing field on which to demonstrate their capacity and feasibility. 
Ministers must not tip the scales during this consultation period in 
favour of any favoured scheme. And if the Government does decide the 
time has come to harness the natural power of the Severn, it must do 
so with the overall good of our natural environment prominent in its 
considerations