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Severn Barrage

My Lords, I join other noble Lords in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Livsey of Talgarth, for giving us the opportunity to discuss this fascinating subject today. I found myself agreeing with much of what he had to say, particularly on the subject of tidal lagoons, of which I have been an enthusiastic supporter for some years now. Not surprisingly, I also strongly agree with the remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Miller of Chilthorne Domer, on that. As many noble Lords have already said, we have the second highest tidal range in the world around the shores of the UK, particularly in the Severn Estuary and the Bristol Channel. This is a highly prized asset, which we have been too slow to take advantage of. We have just had the Minister’s announcement of plans to increase offshore wind power substantially. New wave power devices are receiving support and subsidy from the Government. However, wind and waves cannot be guaranteed, whereas the tides can; you can set your clock by them with absolute certainty, into the next millennium and beyond. It is a 100 per cent green and free source of energy, so I sometimes ask myself why we are being so pedantic about using it and, instead, concentrating our energies on the wind sector. I find that incomprehensible. Of the three ways in which our tides can be harnessed to supply electricity, I am on record in this House as favouring lagoons. This is because, far from being environmentally damaging, they can promote new ecosystems, they do not impede the passage of shipping and can be positively beneficial as the landward side of any lagoon can be used as a safe haven for ships, and even used as a marina. They would help to reduce coastal erosion and produce electricity for about 20 hours of every day. As far as I am aware, Tidal Electric Ltd is the only company actively seeking to build such a lagoon at the moment. As the noble Lord, Lord Livsey, said in his opening speech, they want to locate it in Swansea Bay and have been working on the project for at least the past seven years. They are not seeking any funding from Her Majesty’s Government, although if tidal streams are being supported with funding—which they are—lagoons are equally deserving. However, I was pleased to read some encouraging words on that possibility in the SDC report entitled Turning the Tide, which says of tidal lagoons: "““To help fill this information gap, the SDC believes there is a strong public interest in developing one or more tidal lagoon demonstration projects in the UK””." It recommends that the Government take this forward by providing financial support to encourage private sector or joint initiatives. The company, Tidal Electric, says that it should be possible to construct the lagoon for about £100 million, which is relative peanuts when set against £15 billion to build a barrage, and that it would have a capacity of 60 megawatts with an output of nearly 200,000 kilowatt hours per annum. This is an opportunity the Government should have been grasping with enthusiasm. Instead, the DTI, now BERR, has been consistently negative about Tidal Electric’s proposals, even going to the expense of commissioning a report in April 2006 that—surprise, surprise—concluded that the company had seriously underestimated the costs. One of the main bones of contention in the report is that it does not accept what Tidal Electric is saying, which is that lagoons can be built using a rubble mound construction for the retaining walls. That is a completely different and less costly building method than that necessary for tidal barrages, which are built almost entirely of reinforced concrete. When the company conducted its feasibility study it appointed two engineering consultants, WS Atkins and Montgomery Watson Harza, both Goliaths in the field of civil engineering, to advise on the project. Both agreed that the rubble mound method was the most suitable and cost-effective option. The upshot of all this is that the company has now reached something of an impasse. It needs seed corn funding of about £2.5 million from private enterprise to complete the environmental impact assessment and deal with planning issues, but the negativity at the ministry guarantees that that is most unlikely to be forthcoming. We know what delay means in terms of lost chances to make early reductions in our emissions, and we know lagoons can produce electricity for about 83 per cent of the time whereas, using only the ebb flow of the tide, the barrage will produce power for only about 25 per cent of the time. We know that we need a working model of a tidal lagoon so that we can properly evaluate them, and that none exists at present. After all, there are a number of other sites around our shores for lagoons which, if built, could collectively produce 8 per cent to 10 per cent of our entire electricity needs. That is what tidal electric is offering with the Swansea Bay lagoon and, as I understand it, it has the support of the Welsh Assembly. We are being offered a gift. I say to the Minister, with all the seriousness I can muster, please do not look this gift horse in the mouth. The Swansea Bay lagoon is outside the area that requires scoping and a comprehensive study for the barrage. We should be giving Tidal Electric the encouragement it deserves and let it show us what it can do. So far as I can see, we have nothing to lose and everything to gain. I shall now talk briefly about the Severn barrage project. Like my noble friend Lord Cope of Berkeley, I give it cautious support. I have concerns about bird and marine life habitats and about the silting and sewage buildup. Shipping seems unlikely to welcome the project as it will delay ships’ arrival in port, be that Bristol, Newport, Cardiff or Gloucester. The jury is out on what impact it will have on fish and fishing, although the noble Lord, Lord Moran, spoke in very worrying terms on some aspects of that. Overriding all these concerns, however, is the fact that the barrage offers real green energy that is not nuclear and would be much cheaper to build than a nuclear power station. The clock is ticking. We need to proceed with all possible haste with the scoping studies, environmental impact assessments and the SDC report if we are to get anywhere near reaching our renewable targets by 2020.