Earth Equity News

Huge U.K. Tidal Project Stirs Controversy. By Jeremy Lovell, ClimateWire, August 19, 2009. "The United Kingdom is weighing a single project that could carry it a long way toward a tough target: its commitment to generate about 35% of its electricity from renewable sources by 2020. On paper, the United Kingdom the leader of a growing worldwide effort to harness tidal and wave power... For conservationists, the feathers begin to fly over the nature of the Severn River Estuary -- the sleeve-shaped stretch of water dividing southwestern England from southern Wales. It boasts 46-foot tides, the second-highest tidal range in the world after Canada's Bay of Fundy... Several variations of how to tap this energy are under study. The biggest -- and most favored by the government -- is a 10-mile-long dam or barrage that would stretch across the mouth of the estuary between Cardiff in Wales and Weston-Super-Mare in at least, what is called the Severn Barrage will deliver a huge pulse of juice, roughly 5% of the nation's requirements... It would make the United England. Tides passing through its 240 turbines would generate 8.6 gigawatts of electricity, roughly the equivalent output of eight large coal-fired power plants... The well-organized and very vocal campaign against the Cardiff-Weston barrage argues that the estuary is a vital rest and recuperation area for nearly 70,000 migrating birds and that the 10-mile wall would block the passage of some 100 species of fish, including migrating salmon, sea trout and eels."