Post by marchesarosa on Aug 26, 2012 9:47:49 GMT 1
From Christopher Booker
more here
The tangled tale of Lord Deben and a dodgy Severn barrage
www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/9498568/The-tangled-tale-of-Lord-Deben-and-a-dodgy-Severn-barrage.html
the proposed Severn barrage itself,[is] a vast concrete wall stretching 11 miles across the Bristol Channel from Somerset to south Wales, possibly incorporating a motorway and a railway, and also 1,000 turbines, which, we are told, would have the “capacity” to generate “6.5 gigawatts” of electricity.
But what is often not understood about tidal barrages is that, like wind turbines, they only generate power intermittently, according to the tides. So the actual output of a Severn barrage, as confirmed in 2007 by Lord Porritt’s Sustainable Development Commission, would only be 22 per cent of its “capacity”.
In other words, the barrage’s contribution to the grid would average out at only 1.43 gigawatts, which is roughly the same as the power produced, much more consistently, by one large gas-fired power station – costing only £1 billion to build. A single nuclear power station, such as that proposed for Hinkley Point further down the estuary, could produce the same amount for a fraction of the same capital investment and with only minimal fuel costs. The barrage would thus be a ludicrously expensive way to produce a relatively small amount of electricity.
more here
The tangled tale of Lord Deben and a dodgy Severn barrage
www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/9498568/The-tangled-tale-of-Lord-Deben-and-a-dodgy-Severn-barrage.html
