Severn Barrage tidal power project: implications for carbon emissions

UK Government encouragement of the Severn Barrage project has regard for the fact that this is by far the largest single source of renewable energy available to the United Kingdom. A major concern for all forms of electricity generation is their effects of carbon emissions and, as a result which is now generally recognised, on global warming. The present paper makes use of published sources of carbon emissions data to estimate the carbon content of each of the operations required to produce, transport, construct, operate and decommission this barrage if it is located and designed as set out in 1989. The approach adopted here is based on estimating the ratio of the life-cycle carbon emissions demand of the scheme (gCO(2)) relative to its energy output (kW) over an assumed lifetime, this to include expected plant replacements over that period.