| Britain's network of 18th century
canals could once again play a major industrial role, in a revival
driven by the demand for green energy.
There are hopes that inland waterways - that are now the
preserve of walkers, barge-owners and holidaymakers - may
finally undergo a rebirth as freight transport routes to meet
the needs of power stations run on biomass plants, where electricity
is produced from wood and waste byproducts.
A scheme by the energy services company Dalkia
that uses the Aire and Calder Navigation canal system in Yorkshire
to carry timber for the power industry is being repeated in
other parts of the country, according to the Freight Transport
Association (FTA).
"It is perhaps not right to call it a renaissance yet, but
there is huge potential for carrying biomass fuel, civic waste
and building materials on the waterways. It can make commercial
and environmental sense," said a spokesman for the FTA.
Biomass has become more important as the UK strives to meet
a European Union target of generating 15% of energy from renewable
sources by 2020. However, the moves come amid uncertainty
over the future administration of the canal network as the
UK government plans to disband the publicly owned British
Waterways and transfer its work to a new Canal and River Trust.
The river Thames and Manchester Ship Canal are already in
regular use but the narrow canal system - built largely in
the latter part of the 18th century - has been out of favour
for decades because vessels are slower than trains or trucks.
However, according to British Waterways, which oversees 2,200
miles of canals and inland waterways, 1.5m tonnes of freight
was carried last year and this figure is expected to rise.
In their industrial heyday, canals carried nearly 40m tonnes
a year.
British Waterways is currently working with the East Midlands
Development Agency and others on a number of pilot schemes
to see whether goods can be taken off the road and on to water.
Dalkia, owned by the French companies EDF and Veolia, has
just announced plans to move 360,000 tonnes of wood products
a year on the Aire and Calder to feed furnaces at a planned
new biomass plant in Pollington, south of Leeds. The plant
will provide renewable power to light and heat 60,000 homes.
A spokesman for Dalkia said that canals were a "cleaner"
way of moving fuel than by road and the company wanted to
make the wider £120m biomass scheme as environmentally friendly
as possible.
Dalkia has already built 200 biomass facilities across continental
Europe, where the wider canals were more obvious arteries
for moving fuel around. Meanwhile British Waterways expects
to be wound up by next summer and be relaunched as a charity
with a reduced cash grant.
Britain's inland waterways are used mainly for leisure, with
about 13m visitors a year. The canals were constructed largely
in the late 18th century and flourished over the next 100
years until the coming of the railways.
The Aire and Calder Navigation Company made the River Aire
navigable as far as Leeds in 1704 with the construction of
locks. Two years later, the company made the River Calder
navigable from Castleford to Wakefield. The Aire and Calder
Canal still connects Leeds with Goole on the coast, 33 miles
away - but, in the past, it allowed coal to be moved from
the Yorkshire collieries for shipping overseas. Now coal tends
to be brought from abroad and then carried by rail for use
in big power stations such as Drax at Selby.
|
