Harness the power of the Severn amid energy crisis

I WAS very interested to listen to the prime minister presenting his new energy policy earlier this month, but saddened to see little reference to the garnering of power through by harnessing tidal waters.

I have watched very closely the research into harnessing the huge tides of the Bristol Channel, which if passed through turbines would satisfy 20% of the UK’s electricity demand.

Sadly the Swansea Lagoon project has stalled, with no real action being taken to get it moving.

If completed it would generate 320MW of clean power.

In contrast, damming up the Bristol Channel would lead to 7200MW of electricity.

Tidal generation ticks all the clean boxes, but appears to be a definite no-no with the environmentalist lobby.

Yet if our nation is to have reliable supplies of cheap power, there has to be some give and take.

Certainly, I would much prefer to have naturally produced electricity rather than nuclear power with all the dangers that come with it, and that is without considering the huge costs of decommissioning such stations at the end of their life.

Scientists tell us that we only have a very short time to clean up the environment.

With the world population increasing, rather than taking carbon out of our earth, we must use, rain, tides and wind to our very best advantage.

It is a fact that whenever any enterprising developer comes up with a set of plans, there will always be strong objections, such as those at Kingsbury oil terminal disrupting supplies.

We are managing to do without the vast annual consumption of coal and air pollution is correspondingly less.

It could be that the future development of hydrogen will reduce the necessity of burning oil, but it is vital that Government, in its pursuit of clean air, which we all want, encourages the use of our tides.

Harness the Severn, Boris!