DUPED! The great hydro-electric con trick

Which is the best, most eco-friendly form of renewable energy? Most of us would probably guess hydroelectric. Unlike wind it doesn’t blight views, chop up birds or drive neighbours mad with humming; unlike solar, hydro installations do not appear so dependent on massive public subsidy. Plus, of course, we live in a land of rivers and rain so it makes sense to harness all that free, carbon-neutral energy.

The Environment Agency certainly thinks so. Out of 26,000 possible in–river sites around the country, it has listed 4,000 as ideally suited to hydro power development, and is licensing up to three a week. Already, around 17 per cent of the world’s electricity and 90 per cent of renewable power comes from hydro. What reasons could there be not to join this green energy revolution?

Quite a few, actually. Besides being at least as unpredictable and costly as solar, within our small island hydro power turns out to be every bit as environmentally damaging as wind. It kills and mutilates fish, trashes historic spawning grounds and wipes out dependent ecosystems. As with wind power, property rights are ignored. And all this at the taxpayer’s expense.

It all started with such good intentions. In 1890 a group of Benedictine monks built a hydro turbine in Fort Augustus abbey in the Scottish Highlands, powering the local village. Similar projects expanded on a bigger scale, and when electricity was nationalised dozens of massive plants were built. In the 1960s children were told that, one day, electricity would be free thanks to the new turbines whirring away under new dams and lochs. This may have seemed plausible in the Highlands, but extending this policy to flatter, dryer parts of England is causing mayhem.

Consider the case of Nottingham Angling Club, which in 1982 paid £150,000 for one and a half miles of fishing rights immediately below Gunthorpe weir on the River Trent.