FANTASY BARRAGE

FANTASY BARRAGE

When I was a child there was a TV programme called Fantasy Island, now it seems we have Fantasy Barrage, which makes much of promising all things to all people – but at a price (financially we are now talking about up to £34 billion pounds). The resurrection of the Severn Barrage scheme (once again) could make you wonder about the sanity (financial or otherwise) of some of the usual suspects. I have no doubt that the usual suspects will trot out the usual glib statements about the project being the solution to all of South Wales’s economic woes.

It sounds good the problem is that it's a fantasy, yes we need to develop the renewable energy resources of the Severn estuary, we would be mad not too. I have serious concerns about any Severn Barrage, firstly is does not generate enough energy over a log enough period and secondly it would be environmentally damaging. A more logical solution would be to build tidal lagoons (one in Swansea Bay would be ideal to test out the technology but has been repeatedly stalled and delayed by a hostile Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) and previously powerless (but now vision-less) Welsh Government.

A combination of tidal lagoons, tidal fences, turbines based in tidal current rich areas and wave energy generation technology (currently being tested in Scotland) and some carefully situated off-shore wind farms could generate a significant amount of sustainable energy. The need is to stretch the period of generation beyond the 3 hour energy pulse offered by previous incarnations of the barrage have offered. This is something that a combination of tidal lagoons and other energy schemes could offer release energy for a far longer period than 3 hours. By using a variety of options we could generate sustainable jobs and skills not to mention make Wales a world leader in developing the energy generation technology – any takers?