British Pride
 

I've just been reading about the Severn Barrage, the proposal that's been knocking around for nearly over a century to build a barrage across the severn, and utilising the tide (the highest in the world!) to generate electricity.

It seems to me like a project we should all get behind; since concorde I can't think of a single engineering project of that scale which makes you feel proud to be British :cool: A project of this scale would held detract the nation from the glum moods we're all in, and prove that the UK isn't on it's knees quite yet. :D

It would create tens of thousands of jobs for at least a decade, open up Bristol-Cardiff transport further, provide 5% of the UKs electricty, be as green as you like and be infinitely more reliable than wind power.

The cost you ask? A mere £12billion. Whilst that may seem like a mad cost it's spread over a decade, is an alternative to spending that money on buying foreign power, and will go back in the hands of the tens of thousands of skileld employees needed for construction

South Wales has a huge unemployment problem, only second to the North East of England and this would bring so much to this area of the UK by creating a skilled workforce. It's a no brainer as far as I'm concerned. I bet we've wasted more than that this year alone.

Have a look anyway, it's an interesting read: (especially that the Nazis had drawn up plans to build a barrage upon their "conquest" of the UK!)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severn_Barrage

The thing that puzzles me is how it costs £9million to conduct a viability survey :scratch:

Re: British Pride
 

?8.75 Million for MP's so they can give it the green light and 0.25million for a team to actually do the study. :money:

Re: British Pride
 

that cost can be covered in the 1.2Bn they take of us in fuel tax a year!!

Re: British Pride
 

The company I work for, was involved in studies in the 80s. We also looked at a barrage across Morcambe Bay. Whilst these sort of projects cause lots of environmental protest. How the hell are we supposed to provide electricity from "Renewables" without some environmental impact.


NIMBYs the lot of them. The Morecambe Bay barrage would also cut about 70 miles from the journey to Barrow etc as it could incorporate a road scheme etc.


BTW. Most of the engineering work (Turbines/ Generators etc.) could no longer be executed in the UK. We shut down our capacity and let the French/Swiss do it

Re: British Pride
 

Exactly ;)

I'd LOVE to see a project like this take off!

Get a decent Engineer to design the bugger too. Get Norman Foster to do the honours (MR MIllau Bridge;)) The guy who did this
http://news.bbc.co.uk/media/images/4...ouds_ap220.jpg

Re: British Pride
 

I suppose it's a matter of investment. It would take so long to plan I'd imagine the training could be done prior to construction, it would need to be seen as a capability investment by the government too. I'd be happy for the government to spend money on getting people in to work rather than just handing it to them! ;)

Re: British Pride
 

Or even this:

Re: British Pride
 

Not sure 'reliable' is the best word there...maybe 'consistant' would be better?

We ought to be using wind energy to pump water up a hill, then use the stored energy to generate on demand for peak-lopping.

Are any of these projects truely green? If you look at the amount of resources required to build them... :confused:

Re: British Pride
 

Its sustainable development, initial use of large amount of resources to build something that is sustainable is miles better than using large amount of resource to build something that then relies on unsustainable resources like coal to run there after.

Re: British Pride
 

How the feck would they have got that to work :shock: is that not just a pipe dream?
Are there materials on the planet strong enough to support that bridge & all it's traffic?
£5.60 sounds good though :roll: