I notice that business secretary, Greg Clark in the House of Commons made told a number of lies in turning down the Swansea Lagoon.

Lie1.
He claimed that nuclear lasts for 60years, in fact, as in the case of Wylfa, it is only about 40 years, construction started 1963, opened 1971, closed 2012/2015. It’s wrong to include the construction years as ‘operational life’.

Lie2.
That the lifetime of the lagoon was calculated at 35years, in effect claiming the tides will stop in 2055 as the moon and it’s influence over the oceans will be lost.

Lie3.
That the amount of electricity generated from the tidal llagoon will decrease over time because of silting as in the case of an existing estuary barrage in France. Not the same as the Swansea lagoon is not across the river Tawe, but isolated on the eastern side of the bay.

Lie4.
When questioned by John Redwood (remember him) on whether it would be more prudent to amortise the capital cost over the full lifespan of the project he said, no. and that it’s usual to ‘front load’ the amortisation. Whilst this applies to private sector investment this does not apply to government investment underwriting, the classic examples being crossrail or channel tunnel.

Strike Price with realistic amortisation.

£160.00 Offshore Wind (20years)
£140.00 Onshore Wind (25years)

£95.50 Hinkey Point Nuclear (40years)
£77.50 Wylfa Nuclear (40years)

£168.00 Swansea Lagoon (35years)
£89.90 Swansea Lagoon (front weighted 90years)
£89.90 Swansea Lagoon (flat 120years)

It is clear that the UK government has deliberately sabotaged the Swansea Tidal lagoon presumably as a way of reserving investment for London at the expense of Wales. Keep them starved of investment, keep them poor.

As I’ve said, I’m not opposed to renewable energy per se. But wind and solar have the major drawback of relying on unreliable sources, and that’s without considerations of visual impact and, in the case of wind turbines, the massive disruption to upland ecology that results in flooding at lower levels.

The Swansea lagoon by comparison relies on an entirely predictable power source. Yes, it will have a visual impact but I think it’s quite pleasing. The estuaries of the Tawe and the Nedd will be left free so I think that river anglers may be worrying over nothing, while sea anglers will be able to reach marks previously inaccessible without a boat. And on top of it all, local people will have a wonderful sporting and recreational facility right on their doorstep.

OK, there may be an issue with the initial price being demanded for the electricity produced, but that can be negotiated, and the price is guaranteed to come down as lessons are learnt and bigger and more efficient lagoons are constructed.

Some nationalists do ask questions of the national (sic) grid and our contribution to it. The SNP proposed an independent Scotland remaining in the GB “national” grid- anything else is impractical and would be against Scottish consumers interests. Or so they claimed. I am almost certain Wales would have to do the same. There would be several independent states involved in running a shared/joint grid. Much as there are two states on Ireland running a shared grid there, and in fact Ireland (rather, companies based in Ireland) want to supply to the GB grid as well.

These are thorny issues but need to be grasped.

The £168 is only true if you assume the Net Present Value of the capital expenditure today will be the same as the value of the revenue stream earned up to year 2050. It’s a capital project funded over 35years for an up-front spend of £910 million. To obtain the £168pMWh floor you need to assume that the wholesale price of electricity in year 2050 will be the same as it is now. This is a ridiculous assumption. “Citizens Advise” should be ashamed of making such a crass calculation.

An internationally accepted assumption on energy is that the wholesale value of energy will be seven times the current value by mid century, and this calculation is used for measuring viability, for example, of LNG ship construction, or oil exploitation in Alaska.

Using this standard, and dividing by 7, we would get an average NPV of only £24pMWh in subsidy, at today value. This IS worth £168, but only in year 2050. The average value of the subsidy is considerably less than all forms of other renewable energy streams. Comparison to nuclear is meaningless as the escrow provision for nuclear waste disposal is underwritten by central government. Also, the capital cost is actually only £850m. The £60m top up is the developer fee, which should be excluded from amortisation over the pay-back as this is ‘up-front risk’. The subsidy floor should be based on capital cost only and fluctuate with wholesale price over the asset lifespan.

I hope Welsh Ministers will consider these points, and Wales is not fooled into future revenue guarantees based on incorrect projected NPVs. This mistake can be witnessed when crossing the Severn Bridge. The tolls collected have already paid for the project, twice over.

As for Emily Gosden who wrote the article for the Daily Telegraph, maybe she should have studied Civil Engineering or Finance at university. Instead, she studied History and Politics at Oxford, then she claims to be an authority on tidal power in Swansea?

Writer, Tim Worstall, does a copy and paste of the Citizens Advice report. It’s no surprise that Worstall is against the Swansea Lagoon as he’s anti Severn Barrage, anti-wind power, anti-solar power and anti-recycling.
The only things Worstall admire are Tax Avoidance, Wealth for No Effort, UKIP and the Plutocracy.
“He [Worstall] has just one aim – to allow tax abuse that let’s the rich get richer at the expense of all the rest of us. He can’t even be honest about his motive.” – Richard Murphy of Tax Research UK.

Because of declining numbers nationally mostly through illegal over fishing at sea, very few game fish other than stocked trout are killed by anglers any longer.
Many clubs now have a compulsory catch & release policy for salmon.

I thought the whole point of ‘renewable energy’ was to protect the environment not wilfully destroy it for profit.
The businesses behind this scheme are morally no better than the 19th century industrialists that left the lower Swansea valley a toxic, moonscape for future generation to sort out.