The Dragon in the Sea is an early novel by Frank Herbert, who later became famous for Dune and its sequels. It’s a psychological drama about submariners under intense mental stress. And it’s of particular interest because their submarines are transporting oil through water. The oil is contained in enormous plastic bags, which are towed behind the vessels and float just below the ocean’s surface.
Herbert researched his themes in great depth. His idea was scientifically valid, having been developed in the 1950s at the University of Cambridge. The system was later made commercially viable by private companies, and named ‘Dracone barges’ in tribute to the novel. They have become widely used around the world to transport many kinds of liquids, including water.
What’s this got to do with Wales? Climate change.
Wet Wales
If you live in Wales, or have visited, you’ve probably noticed that it rains here. Quite a lot. As the oceans warm up, they will release more moisture into the atmosphere. This turns into more rain, and it’s predicted that the UK in particular will have even wetter weather than it does now.
What’s not going to change is Britain’s physical geography. Those clouds will still pile in from the Atlantic, be forced upwards over the Welsh mountains, and shed their contents as rain onto Wales. So we’re going to get lots more rain, much more than we currently do. People living next to the 327 high-risk coal tips in the Valleys already worry whenever it rains. The risk of a new Aberfan-style disaster is only going to increase.
Meanwhile, the same climatic changes are making the Mediterranean region hotter and drier. Spain, for example, is facing extended and worsening droughts, with many communities facing restrictions on water use, or even needing to have their water brought from elsewhere as local sources run out. Authorities are increasingly forced to rely on desalinated sea water, which requires an energy-intensive and expensive process. The same pattern is being seen all around the Mediterranean.
Could Welsh water be a part of their response? Let’s look at some numbers.
Exporting water
Cape Town, with a Mediterranean climate on the southern tip of Africa, demonstrates the problems that are coming. In 2017–18, a prolonged drought brought the city to breaking point. Despite ultra-strict restrictions on water use, the city came close to running out entirely – a prospect referred to as ‘Day Zero’.
The rains returned at the last minute and the crisis was averted, but not before discussions were held about shipping in water via fleets of supertankers, or even towing icebergs to the gasping population. Desalination doesn’t seem to have been discussed; it was likely too expensive for a developing nation.
Cape Town has a population of four million people, and needs 500mn litres of fresh water every day. One supertanker can transport 400mn litres – but that’s only the largest ships. Most vessels carry less than that. So a city like Cape Town would need a minimum of two ships delivering fresh water every single day and perhaps more.
Dracone barges, by way of contrast, can carry up to 1.1mn litres in the largest sizes; nothing like a supertanker’s capacity. However, they can be towed for hundreds of miles in the open sea by a relatively small and inexpensive tug. A fleet of tugs equipped with them might be cheaper and more versatile than a fleet of supertankers.
How much fresh water could Wales export? According to the BBC and the Senedd, Dŵr Cymru sells 320mn litres daily to Severn Trent Water for use in England. United Utilities takes 302mn every day. Thats a total of roughly 622mn litres of water exported from Wales daily. However, England plans to extract a further 155mn litres daily, so we’re looking at a potential daily capacity of 777mn litres: half as much again as is needed for Cape Town.
Regaining our rain
Barcelona and its surrounding region, in drought-stricken Catalonia, has 4.6mn people, making it roughly comparable to Cape Town. Welsh water shipped to Barcelona would likely be cheaper than water from desalination, and allow the increasingly expensive energy to be used for other purposes.
Wales alone can’t solve Spain’s water problem, but it could make a significant contribution while that country adapts to climate change. It could likewise make a difference in Italy, Greece, or Morocco. As we receive more rain in future, we’ll be able to export more – assuming we invest in improving the size and number of our reservoirs.
But isn’t that water already accounted for? It goes to England, after all …
An independent Wales would nationalise its water reserves and cancel those contracts. Thereafter, our surplus water might be sold at international auction. Perhaps – to select numbers at random – in tranches of 10mn litres per day for a period of five years.
England could still buy our water, but would have to beat offers coming in from Spain, Greece, or Morocco. Water sold to overseas buyers could be shipped in a fleet of supertankers, which would probably mean developing our main deepwater harbour at Milford Haven as the export hub.
Alternatively, flotillas of much smaller tugs towing Dracone barges might create a network of smaller hubs around the Welsh coast, revitalising our ancient maritime communities and small ports, and kickstarting a Welsh merchant navy. It wasn’t that long ago, after all, that Wales had a fleet of small ships criss-crossing its waters, and tramp steamers officered and crewed entirely by Welsh-speakers were frequent visitors to ports and harbours around the world.
Imagine fleets of Welsh ‘dragon barges’, crewed and captained by Cymry Cymraeg sailing the high seas …
A dragon fleet
Raising the investment to establish such fleets and the necessary infrastructure should be straightforward. The business model speaks for itself and is sustainable for the long term. The key point is that selling our water on an international market is feasible. We’re not locked in to selling to England.
What about the communities in England who currently receive that water? Of course, they can still have it – if they pay us the best price. In any case, England may well be getting wetter as well.
However, the Environment Agency recently predicted that by 2025 England will need an extra 5bn litres per day, over and above the current daily usage of 14bn. It has much bigger problems than what can be brought from Wales. Perhaps it can invest in building reservoirs in its own country.
It’s not for us to worry about, though. Charity begins at home, and London’s rule has left us with many expensive problems to be addressed here in Wales. Such as those coal tips.
Nevertheless, the threat of losing cheap water is one reason why London will fight tooth and nail to prevent Welsh independence. This should motivate us to struggle even harder to achieve it. To establish control over our natural resources and finally receive fair value for them, for the benefit of our own people. A fleet of dragons is just one way we could do it.
