Home Planet - 05/01/2010

The first recorded proposal for a Severn Barrage was in 1849 - not to produce electricity but to produce a large, reliable, harbour. Since then many different ideas have been put forward for using the huge tidal drop of the Severn Estuary to produce electricity. None have so far been built and this week you want to know the panel's views on why this might be. There's also the many and varied techniques that birds use to see into water, and how fish spot them coming. Is it possible to exploit the ocean's dead zones to produce valuable crops? And just how is it that electricity knows to stick to the cable and not electrocute the birds so cheekily perched upon them? We also hear the results of the survey of the impact of fireworks on roosting birds. On the panel are marine biologist Helen Scales, ornithologist Graham Appleton and Professor Philip Stott, environmental scientist of the University of London. If you have any comments on the topics discussed or any questions you might want to put to future programmes, please do let us know.