Cardiff professor delivers prestigious ICE lecture

Cardiff School of Engineering Professor Roger Falconer has delivered the prestigious Institution of Civil Engineers’ Dugald Clerk lecture for 2015, which was held in London on Monday 2nd February.

The Dugald Clerk lecture series was instituted in 1938 following a bequest made by Sir Dugald Clerk (1854-1932), a former ICE Vice-President. The biennial lecture is given on subjects connected with mechanical engineering and water or coastal structures, and has become ICE’s prestige lecture for the water sector.

Professor Roger Falconer is based within the Hydro-environmental Research Centre (HRC) and is the CH2M HILL Professor of Water Management at Cardiff School of Engineering. His talk, entitled “Tidal Energy – Challenges and Opportunities”, examined the topic of tidal energy in the context of national and international projects and proposals, illustrated by the HRC’s research studies in the field, including: the Severn Barrage, the Welsh Grounds Lagoon, the North Wales lagoons and novel vertical axis turbines designed by Professor Thorsten Stroesser (also at Cardiff School of Engineering).

In his talk, Professor Falconer highlighted the considerable opportunities available for acquiring renewable tidal energy from the Severn Estuary, complemented by further opportunities along the North Wales coast and other areas where power production is 4 hours out of phase with the Severn river. He also discussed the HRC’s new design for a Severn Barrage, which addresses most of the environmental concerns raised with regard to the previous Severn Tidal Power Group scheme.

For more information on the Hydro-environmental Research Centre at Cardiff School of Engineering, please visit their webpage.