Barrage. Good or bad?

It would create a huge leisure area and no doubt a huge potential for development along the coastline besides another possible crossing of the Estuary and not forgetting the main purpose of generating electricity.
Then it would also create the possibility of a new Airport further up the estuary to replace the very difficult to get to airports at Cardiff and Bristol and to relieve Heathrow, not that the big wigs would allow anything to go outside the London area.
 
I'm not sure very much would change. Yes, the barrage would reduce the waves/chop to some extent but the rise and fall of the tide would surely be the same, just delayed a little? The delay would also slightly increase the silting but I don't think it will be by much. Of course we would have the delay of an extra lock when heading west.
My personal view is that we should have had under water tide driven propellers years ago. The talk of a barrage for 30+ years, to my knowledge, has meant billions of megawatts of power has gone untapped.
Allan
 
If anything like the tidal storm barrier in Holland the tidal range was reduced inside the barrier, by about a meter at springs along with the change of the time of HW & LW. Incidentally also increased the heights of tides in Antwerp.
 
david_bagshaw said:
If anything like the tidal storm barrier in Holland the tidal range was reduced inside the barrier, by about a meter at springs along with the change of the time of HW & LW. Incidentally also increased the heights of tides in Antwerp.
Click to expand...
That could be a problem. So based on a 6m tide at Antwerp and a 14m tide in Barry, it could be 2.3 ish Metres higher.
 
I read somewhere that the Bristol Port Co worked out the the barrage would reduce the range of the tide by a few meters making it difficult for the larger ULCS to dock at the new container terminal being built at Avonmouth.
Is this still being built as I can't see anything from the water or the land?
 
If you believe the governments figures a barrage could produce 5% of Britains electricity. Is it worth such a huge environmental gamble for 5% ?
 
There was a scheme proposed in the 1960s which would have seen, not only a barrage, but the impounded water held in 2 basins.

The idea was that the turbines could run at any state of the tide as the water in each basin would be at different levels and of course the level outside the barrage would be different again.

I like the idea of the barrage, but:

How can silting be kept under control?

How are fish allowed to migrate?

Any ship-lock is likely to be very exposed to all weathers.

Paul
 
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