River power

[maltaron]

In recent years some areas of Britain have suffered major flooding. Aside from the climate change theory(to which I do NOT subscribe) I believe that the major causes of this are 1. Building on flood plains and 2. Poor river maintenance. Would a possible solution be to construct a river diversion with flow on existing route controlled with weirs or penstocks to a manageable level, and the diversion used to generate hydroelectric power for the bypassed town. I am certain that long term costs would be comparable to wind systems which have a limited life. Another possibility is the use of the many fast flowing small rivers, mainly in the West Country and North of England, for power generation. In fact there are many old water mills which could easlly be converted for small scale energy.

[Richard]

Major flood defence works generally cost tens or hundreds of millions of £'s so whilst it's possible in theory to solve most river flooding the hard part is obtaining the funding to do so.