Here is a link to my contribution to the debate in Parliament about the Severn barrage, on the 2nd April 2013.
Tidal Power
by Lord Hylton • • 6 Comments
Here is a link to my contribution to the debate in Parliament about the Severn barrage, on the 2nd April 2013.
I agree that we should do something to harness the tidal power of the Severn. This should be in addition to the planned new generation of nuclear power stations. What is it with some people where they don’t like nuclear, but then don’t want wind turbines becasue they spoil the landscape and don’t want a barrage becasue of its effect on nature. Are they prepared to give up their electrical supply at home and use candles? I thought not.
I don’t know if it’s a mistake on Hansard’s part, but the Rance barrage opened in 1966, rather than 1996. I knew the latter date was incorrect as I visited it before then!
As long as you can’t see it from the window!
I must admit to being puzzled in times of need for green and predictable/reliable power sources that tidal barrages on a number of rivers seem to have slipped further away from development not closer.
Perhaps it reflects the environment movements remarkable ability to decry fossil fuels use for its environmental damage while often being at the vanguard of opposition/legal challenges to wind/barrage etc for their ‘environmental damage’. I fear they are engaging in the ultimate indulgence of opposing everything and proposing nothing.
the way ahead for internal combustion is electric power, for caras as well as my garden equipment power.
There are fewer working parts. They do not use fossil fuels, but they would increase the quantity of nuclear waste in the North sea and other places too.
The problem is creating the grid network for those who want re charging whilst away from home….. if they go that far.
The shopping run; the school run; the commuter station run will all be done by rechargeable power, in the garage, in the electric plug.
A mix of engines is probably what will happen since there are already many electric driven cars for local purposes. Those who have to go further, will for the time being continue to use electricity, and rechargeable batteries.
What then do we do with Lead acid battery waste? There are always new problems turning up to be solved and people get better and better at solving them. The recycling business is better now than it ever has been, according to the travellers.
Some of us still seek to “Think Globally – Act Locally”
But what is the overarching Global situation ?
I mean, if the Gulf-Stream cum Convector Current really does “suddenly” cause a North Atlantic tipping-point, such that possibly in less than a mere decade these British Isles become snow-bound year-round, how might the Bore-Barrages and other “low carbon footprint”, “green” or “environmentally-friendly” collective-technologies save our bacon then ?
And what of the even more monstrously-overarching Human-Overpopulation Threat, consuming (= one-way destroying) this year two Earthsworth of non-renewable resources, and by 2050 demanding three-Earthsworth, just to maintain the ‘Global-Economy’ and 11 billion Population at 2009 standards ?
And if we “conquer” that Population:Lifestyle:Lifesupports Big-Shortfall,
is the Severn Borwe Barrage going to be one supportive-element in the sustainment of both People and Technology until our “children’s-children” locate and colonise an “Earth-Two”, somewhere-else-in-Space ?
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Let’s cut this cackle.
Where is all of the right relevant evidence ?
Do we the “participatorily-responsible democratic-British-public”
Need-to-Know,
or Not ?
Where on the new and official British-government-acclaimed Freedom-of-Information Worldwide Internet would one dial-up all such key facts, factors,
and ‘healthy-mind-food’ ?
Are “environmenaally-friendly” relatively “cool” and “non-pollutive” wind-power, water-power, and solar-panel-power, more “environmentally-sustainworthy”
than fiery-smoke-belching Fossil-Fuel or Nuclear-Toxification-Hazardous “Energies” ?
Reading about the effect of the Barrages on the lives of the people of Bangla Desh below it.