Global Warming (again)

We already do have wind farms out at sea and more are being built. They should not be any more a hazard to ships than all the oil rigs that are dotted around the world's oceans. The hazard occurs when the ship's engines fail and I would prefer it to hit a wind turbine rather than an oil rig.
You can achieve higher wind speeds at sea than over land but the structures would cost more and there is the added problem for moving the electricity. The longer the transmission lines then the greater is the loss of electricity that is experienced.
The Severn estuary does not have the highest tidal range in the world - the Canadians have that title somewhere on their East coast. The Severn barrage was scuppered on environmental grounds. Morecambe Bay was also proposed as a possibility. The estuaries are famed for their migrating flocks that move down the West coast. They hop from one estuary to another on their migration routes down the west coast and Britain supports very high proportions of some species. To put a barrage across would alter the tidal interchange which is vital for those ecosystems. Quite simply such a scheme could easily have wiped out large proportions of some species cause it would affect them at avery vulnerable stage. The Severn estuary has worldwide importance in terms of its conservation status.
It is not easy creating Carbon neutral homes. The closest I have heard on a largish scale was the BedZED scheme in South London (Beddington Zero Energy Development).
http://www.peabody.org.uk/pages/GetPage.aspx?id=179
This was an integrated scheme with public transport available, car clubs ( seem like a good idea), small scale neighbourhood power station that produces both heat and power and burns renewable fuel and featured houses that had very high levels of insulation.
However I did read that they did not quite manage to achieve zero carbon emissions because they were having to use some extra heating. But the houses have proved very popular, partly cuase they are nice to live in and cheap to run. I think there are a lot of ideas in there that need to be more widespread.

 

Sorry chaps about mentioning the Severn estuary and the channel tunnel - you can see I live a long way away in the north! :D

 

Seeing as we have the tunnel why do we have to drive all the way to Folkestone to get on it? We have to go all the way round London via the M25 ( world's biggest car park). Why can't we load our cars , or lorries on at Birmingham or Manchester and then get off near Paris. The French have those sort of trains btween Northern and Southern France. Couldn't they just extend it a bit further?

 

Thats the best idea I've heard yet Geoff, that way all the traffic generated by the tunnel would completely bypass this part of the country,( probably the most congested).
The thing is would the rest of the county put up with all the track being layed, its cut right across Kent and runs paralell with the M20 for a long section, the motorway is one thing, but this is something else.
Wildlife is cut off entirely, it looks hideous and the trains dont seem to use it "that" frequently to make it worthwhile.
Believe me YOU DONT WANT IT.

 

But would they need extra track? Such trains don't need to go that fast, not like Eurostar. So they would not need new high speed track. You load up on an evening, go to bed , and wake up in another country. Would certainly save fuel. A train can transport , say a hundred cars, using a lot less fuel than the cars would use up driving.

 

I dont really know Geoff, speed is everything these days, if its not fast it wont work,..... I dont think.