UK PICKS WIND OVER TIDES

U.K. Axes Tidal-Power Plan, Saying Wind Energy Cheaper
Reed Landberg and Louise Downing (w/Todd White), October 18, 2010 (Bloomberg BusinessWeek)

"The U.K. government shelved plans for a tidal-power plant at the Severn estuary that could have supplied as much as 5 percent of the nation’s power using the argument that nuclear and wind energy represent better value. The project might have cost more than 30 billion pounds ($48 billion) to harness tidal energy, making it too expensive and 'very challenging' to secure financing from private companies…

"The decision, along with separate moves to spur nuclear power, mark out the government’s strategy to replace a quarter of the nation’s electric power stations by 2020. Prime Minister David Cameron’s government is seeking to balance efforts that will limit carbon emissions with tighter limits on spending… [All areas of] spending are under review."

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"…[The government] listed eight possible sites for new nuclear plants and said the U.K. taxpayer may share certain financial risks as Electricite de France SA, Centrica Plc., E.ON AG and RWE AG plan to build reactors. EDF and Centrica’s British Energy unit are planning to build four atomic plants in the country, the first one to be ready by 2018…

"The government today said it plans to keep the Severn tidal option open for future consideration though it won’t review the decision before 2015, when the next election is due…The five proposals for a tidal project across the Severn River where it meets the sea include three options for dams, or barrages, and two tidal-lagoon designs. They were studied for their economic and environmental impacts in a feasibility study during the past year."

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"The project might reduce bird populations in as many as 30 species and cause local extinctions and population collapses of certain fish, including Atlantic salmon, according to the study…The Cardiff-Weston barrage, the largest project considered, provided the lowest cost of energy…[but] was also found to have the greatest environmental impact. Combinations of smaller projects don’t offer cost or energy yield advantages…Two project proposals, a lagoon and a barrage option, were found to be unfeasible…

"Industry lobby groups RenewableUK and the Renewable Energy Association said that the decision to abandon the project was “disappointing,” referring to a more conservative cost estimate in the study of 23 billion pounds…The Renewable Energy Association…said that a smaller barrage at a different location…would be a “sensible” route forward. Then, the impacts could be fully monitored and understood, and procedures to mitigate environmental damage could be developed and applied to a project across the Severn…Earlier this year industry and government officials identified nine possible proposals for tidal energy…"