Tidal energy project 'will be funded by taxpayer'

The Times
January 27, 2009

Lewis Smith, Environment Reporter
A £22 billion tidal energy project that would provide almost 5 per cent of Britain’s electricity will receive taxpayers’ cash if it is approved, ministers indicated yesterday.
The estimated cost of the Cardiff-Weston Severn barrage scheme, which compares with the £37 billion of public money spent on the first bank bailout, is so high that it will require public money if it is to be realised, they admitted.
Ed Miliband, Secretary for Energy and Climate Change, announced the scheme as one of five on a shortlist of projects to harness the power of the huge tides in the Severn estuary.

He acknowleged the challenging costs of the ten-mile barrage but said it could make a significant contribution to reducing the nation’s dependence on fossil fuels for energy.
The hydroelectric barrage proposed for the Severn between Cardiff and Weston-super-Mare is predicted to be more expensive than the other four shortlisted schemes put together. It would provide 4.8 per cent of Britain’s electricity and would create thousands of jobs in Wales and the South West.
Ministers are also attracted to the scheme, despite the cost, because it highlights their commitment to tackling climate change.
It remains controversial, however, because it would destroy 20,000 hectares (77 sq miles) of some of the most valuable habitat for wetland birds in Europe and would cause job losses in the dockyard and fishing industries.
The other schemes are smaller in scale but would also make a significant contribution towards renewable energy targets. All are likely to generate employment. The Cardiff-Weston barrage would be expected to provide work for 18,000 people for at least seven years, but would cause the loss of 3,300 jobs in fishing and portindus-tries. The smallest of the five schemes, the Fleming lagoon, would create an estimated 4,500 jobs for five years.
Under the terms of a European Union agreement to tackle climate change, Britain has to increase its dependence on renewable energy from about 3 per cent today to 15 per cent by 2020. The target is expected to mean that about 35 per cent of electricity must be from renewable sources.
The four projects also shortlisted are: Shoots barrage and Beachley barrage, both smaller and farther upstream than the Cardiff-Weston scheme, and two lagoons that would rely on similar hydroelectric technology but run along the shoreline rather than across the river.
Mr Miliband said that the Government was anxious to look into the potential of exploiting the “extraordinary resource” of the Severn’s 45ft (14 metre) tidal range, the world’s second-biggest, because of “the massive threat that climate change poses and the massive challenge that poses”.

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He said: “It would be wrong to rule it out at this stage simply on the grounds of cost. We are thinking of a project that will last for 120 years.”
However, a decision on public funding has yet to be taken and if the Government is willing to spend money on the Severn project it would be in partnership with the private sector. It is unlikely that public money would be made available to the other schemes.
Mike O’Brien, a minister at the Department for Energy and Climate Change, said he was confident that private money would be forthcoming for the smaller schemes but he accepted that the Cardiff-Weston barrage would need taxpayers’ cash.
“That would require a considerable amount of public funding. We have included it as an option here because the possibility of raising that finance is clearly there,” he added.

The shortlist is being put out for consultation. Ministers are expected to decide in 2010 and said that they might select more than one. Among the projects not on the shortlist were innovative schemes for tidal fences – rows of generators dependent on the force of the tide – and tidal reefs, in which turbines are placed on raised beds.
Schemes based on new, unproven technology were given a second chance as the Government, the South West Regional Development Agency and the Welsh Assembly combined to offer a £500,000 development fund. Should any of them prove feasible they will be reconsidered.
The failure to shortlist offshore lagoons, which would cause far less environmental damage than barrages and shore-based lagoons, caused disappointment in the green lobby.
Gordon James, director of Friends of the Earth Cymru, said: “Their exclusion from the Government’s shortlist is utterly incomprehensible and raises serious concerns about the consultation process. Ministers must abandon their fixation with the Severn barrage and invest in more effective and less damaging alternatives.”
Professor David Elliott, of the Open University, said: “Quite apart from its environmental problems, the single big barrage idea is pretty hopeless in energy terms since it will only provide two short bursts of power each 24-hour lunar cycle, and these will not necessarily match the daily cycles in energy demand. What do you do with 8.6GW of electricity in the middle of the night in summer, when there is no demand for it?”
According to a document from the Department for Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, a barrage would stop the Severn Bore, the phenomenon that forces waves to surge up the river’s estuary against the current during the highest tides.