Will Welsh eels scupper the craziest 'green' project ever?

[-:Undertaker:-]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/1...ject-ever.html

Will Welsh eels scupper the craziest 'green’ project ever?

The absurd Swansea tidal lagoon would cost a fortune to build and would produce the most expensive electricity in the world

An artist's impression of the Swansea tidal lagoon

If you wanted a single example of how far all those who aspire to govern us after this election can lose any touch with reality, a good place to begin might be page 56 of the Conservative manifesto. Here, in a section on “Energy”, we are told how the Coalition Government has “unlocked £59 billion of investment” to produce “low carbon” electricity to meet our commitments under Ed Miliband’s Climate Change Act. All the projects listed are, of course, hugely subsidised, to produce power costing us all twice or three times as much as that from conventional power stations. But there at the end is a mention of “the Swansea tidal lagoon”.

I admit that, until recently, I had no more idea what this was about than 99 per cent of the population. But I was struck by the remarkable array of backers this scheme has attracted, from the Prudential insurance company and Ed Davey, our Lib Dem Energy and Climate Change Secretary, to George Osborne in his recent Budget speech, and the BBC, which has been giving it excitable puffs.

Tidal Lagoon Power (TLP), the company behind the scheme, is proposing to ship 3.2 million tons of stone from a disused Cornish quarry to south Wales, to enclose a vast area of Swansea Bay in a six-mile breakwater. At the sea end, 16 giant turbines will then use power from rising and falling tides to generate “zero-carbon” electricity for 14 hours a day.

TLP insists that its £1 billion scheme will only work if it is allowed to charge for its electricity at 330 per cent of the normal wholesale price of £50 per megawatt hour (MWh). This would give it a subsidy of £118 per MWh, even more than that for offshore wind, making it easily the most expensive electricity in the world.

Artist's impression of the proposed tidal lagoon in Swansea Bay

But even more interesting is how much electricity we would be getting for our money. It makes one wonder if all those politicians have actually done their sums. All TLP reveals on its website is that the Swansea Bay scheme will generate “495,000 MWh a year”. To Ed Davey and Co, this may sound a lot. But divide it out and the average output would be just 57MW. Compared to that of even a modest conventional power station, this scarcely registers.

The £1 billion gas-fired power plant that opened two years ago along the Welsh coast near Pembroke can, without a penny of subsidy, generate 2,000MW or 35 times as much. Even allowing for the cost of the gas, the comparison is laughable. And, of course, the pitiful output from Swansea, varying wildly while it is working, and producing nothing for 10 hours a day, would – to keep our lights on – need constant back-up from those fossil-fuel power stations that our politicians say they want to see closed down in pursuit of the “decarbonised” economy they prattle about without having the faintest idea what this means.

Not the least astonishing feature of the Swansea scheme is how quickly it has been rushed through, at the highest political level. We were told that, as a “National Infrastructure Project” it had been approved by the Planning Inspectorate. All that remained was for whoever heads the Department for Energy and Climate Change after May 7 to press the button for TLP to start work within weeks.

The project developers want to reopen a disused quarry in Cornwall to provide rocks for the seawall

Last week, however, there was an unexpected twist. Contrary to any impressions previously given, the Department for Energy and Climate Change received a letter from Giles Scott, “Head of National Infrastructure Consents” at the Planning Inspectorate, asking 25 more searching questions, to be answered no later than April 28. These are on every kind of issue, from whether the scheme complies with the EU’s Habitats Directive and whether any alternative projects have been considered that would give more “environmental benefit”, to whether the turbine project would prevent eels having access to local rivers.

Mr Scott tells the department and TLP only to reply to his letter if they can “provide responses to the specific questions being asked”. Otherwise “nothing in this letter is to be taken to imply” what the final decision might be.

How ironic it would be if Welsh eels put the kybosh on the most nonsensical “green” pipe dream ever proposed in Britain.

I remember hearing of this a while back and thinking, mmphffffffff seems good if it isn't subsidised (a big if).

Well unsurprisingly, it is to be subsidised and is even more expensive than the ridiculous wind turbines we're erecting all over the country which have a short shelf life, barely produce anything and which cause energy bills to rise by an exceptional amount. But green energy aside as anyone with a dose of reality knows what a swindle it is, let's just look at the political angle here for a moment.

You'll have heard time and time again Ed Miliband and Labour go on and on about energy prices yet it was they who caused the massive increase in energy prices through their ridiculous Climate Change Act. And as for the Tories? All about the economy and low taxes... yeah so why are you subsiding this ridiculous 'green' energy and then charging us through the nose for it? Don't they understand energy costs are one of the biggest factors in an economy especially industry?

Wouldn't it be nice to have a long-term energy policy based in reality aka cheap and reliable shale gas, oil, coal and a bit of nuclear?

Thoughts?

[GommeInc]

That's a bit of a let down if this is true. It looked promising. I still don't see why we cannot have nuclear. The fear-mongering over them is ridiculous.

[Firehorse]

Meanwhile China, India, Russia, America, Australia (etc) read these UK green shenanigans and laugh at us all the way to the bank.

[FlyingJesus]

Saw a video of a guy with an eel in his bum once