Electricity-generating tidal lagoons located in the Severn Estuary could provide an economically attractive and environmentally acceptable way of supplying up to 7% of England and Wales’s electricity consumption with low-cost, low-carbon electricity.
There are a large range of potential environmental and economic benefits and disbenefits associated with siting lagoons or the proposed Severn Barrage in the Estuary. However, initial comparisons strongly suggest that lagoons could be significantly less extensive and environmentally damaging and more cost effective and powerful than the Barrage. Lagoons would not directly impound the ecologically highly valuable inter-tidal areas of the Estuary. (more…)