Just say no to the Swansea lagoon

Everybody obviously colours the argument for their pet scheme. But it's rare to see something quite as transparent as the entirely fallacious arguments being put forward for the Swansea lagoon:

Plans to build the world’s first tidal lagoon power plant in Swansea Bay have now been granted development consent. At a time when the UK is struggling to rewire its electricity market to introduce more security, less carbon and less cost, here is a blueprint for an infrastructure solution that ticks each box and that will endure.

Reliable? Quite possibly, low carbon almost certainly yes. However, less cost it simply will not be. We can tell this because they're asking for a contracts for difference price on the electricity to be generated of £168 per MWhr. Rather higher than even the most absurd of the nuclear plans and very much higher than a gas plant, or even wind turbines (and yes, higher than gas even taking carbon emissions into account).

We know this because this has all been extensively studied. Hundreds and hundreds of pages of analysis with this basic conclusion:

In the light of these findings the Government does not see a strategic case to bring forward a Severn tidal power scheme in the immediate term. The costs and risks for the taxpayer and energy consumer would be excessive compared to other low-carbon energy options. Furthermore, regulatory barriers create uncertainties that would add to the cost and risk of construction. The Government believes that other options, such as the expansion of wind energy, carbon capture and storage and nuclear power without public subsidy, represent a better deal for taxpayers and consumers at this time.

That was the report that killed off the idea of the government itself investing in it. Now Frankenstein's Monster has risen again by claiming that it won't get government subsidy. It'll just pick all our pockets through the electricity price instead. Same people having to pay the same subsidy just via a different route.

That analysis really is damning too. The larger the lagoon, barrage, built, the more money is lost. It's as if the cot com boom never happened: we lose money on every transaction and make it up in volume. It's really not too strong to say that this is the rapine of the citizenry.

It's also possible to identify where the original mistake was made: by Ed Miliband, yes it was. If there's going to be a subsidy to renewables (we prefer a carbon tax but...) then that subsidy should be the same for all technologies. And thus we'll end up building out the renewables that work best. However, the decision was made to vary that subsidy dependent upon the costs of each different technology. So it's possible for people to wander in and claim they've got this great idea: but they'll just need to sell their 'leccie for 4 times the going rate to fund it. This is madness. And it's exactly the problem that the imposition of a carbon tax avoids.

We absolutely know that this phantasmagorical plan just will not work, will not work in providing us with the energy that we desire at a price that we're willing to pay for it. We really do need to tell these chancers and scheme promoters to take a long walk off that short pier that their lagoon will obliterate.