Rivers hold the key to reliable, efficient power

IT was interesting reading in the Saturday edition about the scheme to generate electrical energy in the Esk valley, with support from the county council and the National Park Authority (Yorkshire Post, July 16).

A similar project has been carried out in Wensleydale using the same type of Archimedes screw turbine, generally this is an efficient form of electrical energy generation.

Using water power for reliable generation is somewhat overlooked, or more likely deliberately ignored, as successive governments have favoured the totally unreliable and unsightly wind turbines.

In New Zealand last January it was interesting reading about the pointless and futile wind generation in the UK when there were very low temperatures, requiring power generation for heating and yet the UK was suffering a long period of low pressure and therefore no wind.

The New Zealand report concluded that wind turbines were actually working at less than one per cent efficiency.

Water generation can be fairly accurately assessed, based on flow rate and the “head”, this produces a known level of generation, unlike wind which is so unpredictable that correlation is almost impossible to predict.

Almost any village with a reasonable stream or river flowing through could be almost self-sufficient in electrical energy, such places as Mickley, near Ripon, already have an old mill weir, used by the Environment Agency for counting fish. This could certainly drive a turbine, as could almost any old mill weir on our rivers, such as Ruswarp in North Yorkshire.

Something like the Tees barrage between Stockton and Middlesbrough would have had colossal generation potential if turbines had been installed during construction, so why wasn’t it?

As a retired electrical engineer I say there is only one clean and efficient way to make electricity in this country and, like it or not, that’s nuclear, but a few Archimedes turbines would help a lot.