Cutting Your Carbon

The notion of a barrage stretching across the Bristol Channel is once again being examined, but perhaps not as quickly as Labour MP for Kingswood, Roger Berry, would like.

He’s tabled a motion in the House of Commons stating that speed is of the essence for the feasibility study into the project - given that an extra half-a-million tonnes of carbon dioxide are emitted for each month of delay incurred to the completion of the scheme.

But it’s his party that seems to be taking its time on the matter. Two months after launching the feasibility study and there is still no definite timetable laying out what will be studied, how long it would take, how much it would cost and who would lead the report.

Barrage of work

Business and Enterprise Secretary, John Hutton, told a Select Committee in November that a work-plan would not be published until early in the New Year.  A spokesman for his department intimated that there would initially be a preliminary study laying out what the study proper would entail. 

This could take up to 12 months, followed by the study itself which could take several years and cost millions to produce. So, precisely what might happen to the ebbing and flowing of energy in the Bristol Channel might not be announced until the London Olympics have been and gone.

There is however plenty to consider. The feasibility study will not just look into what form a Severn Barrage might take, but also chew over the growing number of other tidal options.

Tide turning

Prime Minister Brown, in his first major speech on climate change, signalled his support for developing tidal energy and that doesn’t just mean the old favourite the dam.

Tidal lagoons are favoured by the North Somerset branch of Friends of the Earth, who are dead-set against the barrage – despite the mouth-watering prospect of enough renewable electricity for up to five per cent of the UK’s needs. 

“It would seriously affect what is an international wildlife site and alter the water levels, causing the loss of over half the mudflats which the wildlife feed on,” insists their spokeswoman Debbie Staveley.

Meanwhile, one South Gloucestershire firm is running with the deceptively simple idea of simply transposing wind turbines onto the sea-bed.

Marine Current Turbines of Stoke Gifford has already built a working prototype off the Devon coast at Lynmouth which has proved its worth. Now they’re hoping to unveil the world’s first commercial tidal turbine project off the Northern Irish coast next year and they’ve had interest in their invention from across the Atlantic too.

They say each turbine would create enough electricity for 1,000 homes.

Managing director Martin Wright says tidal turbines placed around the coast of the UK could produce the same amount of energy as the Severn Barrage.

He dismissed claims that the turbines could prove damaging to wildlife: “We’re not putting the equivalent of a desk fan in the water where you shove your fingers in and they get cut off, " he said.

"The water drives the turbine and the flow that runs through the turbine has a shape that makes it very difficult for any object to get hit by the blades. It’s not impossible but it’s very difficult.”