Thursday 7 June 2007

Severn Barrage

On Wednesday in the House of Commons, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and Wales discussed the possible development of the Severn Barrage which could create a significant supply of clean, electricity for the UK by harnessing the tidal flow of the Severn Estuary. Rt. Hon Peter Hain MP stated: "experience at La Rance river in France is that biodiversity can increase as a result of the construction of a barrage and that if we are not prepared to take bold steps to fight climate change, biodiversity will be, in a sense, a secondary matter". Read the full debate here.

The BES produced a booklet on the Ecological Impacts of Estuarine Barrages.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is good news, and I would like to see more focus on using a barrage in many of our rivers. The Mersey, for example, is a huge tidal estuary. It is much cleaner in recent years than it has been, and a barrage could be a way to further encourage both green energy and biodervisity in the area. These are the things that the BES should be caring about.

Anonymous said...

Funny you should mention the Mersey... http://icliverpool.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/0100regionalnews/tm_headline=mersey-could-power-all-city-homes%26method=full%26objectid=19294381%26siteid=50061-name_page.html

This long link will take you to a local news story about just such a barrage. It does suggest an impacy for local wading-birds. Any thoughts on what kind of impact this might have?