Wind farms & tidal barrages

I've always thought that in-stream tidal generators are a much better proposition than barrages, and they can be installed in many more places than barrages and a much more predictable than wind power. It seems the tech is not too hard to crack:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/7790494.stm
Click to expand...

Could'nt agree more & I would have thought even the 'protuberance' above the water level could be done away with.
Would'nt mind investing in something like that.
 
Wind power certainly seems to be flavour of the month round here. No surprise when you consider that an 800kW machine can return a clear profit of £50K per year for the first 10 years, then £150K per year after that when the finance is paid off. There's a positive frenzy of applications at the moment.
 
What about seaweed and other wrigglers that like to call rocks/boats/tidal generators home? You'll get some very giddy oysters. :grin:
 
I don't think it's either/or we need both for our needs now and in the future, and we need to use less energy as well...a complicated and probably unworkable mix, but there's no doubt even if you're a climate change sceptic that using more energy isn't a good idea!
 
A nice easy way that individuals can make a difference immediately is to drive 5 mph slower and use the right foot a little less when pulling away. It is remarkable how much less you use by sticking to the speed limits or a couple of mph less and by not thinking that you have to be the first to the next roundabout or traffic lights. But like other suggestions there is something in our make up which makes many get very defensive about their "right" to drive how they like. I quite understand it and frequently have to tell myself that I am not going to play that game too. But you can use less fossil fuel/save money/produce less CO2 and perhaps hurt less if something goes wrong. Surely win all around and a small but useful contribution to saving the planet?
 
Of course we need a mixed energy economy. Those who think that wind power can fulfil all our needs should look up the concept "Base load" - which is the generating capacity you need when the wind doesn't blow! The problem with wind generation is that every single watt generated by it needs to be backed by a resource that can come on-stream rapidly, and which is independent of the wind. There are mitigation strategies such as better power distribution, but ultimately you can't assume the wind will blow. Basically that means coal, oil or nuclear. Of these, nuclear is probably the best option - and one reason is simply that the radiation dose from a nuclear power station is probably less than that from a coal station! Burning coal concentrates all the non-combustible components into the ash; this may include surprising amounts of unstable isotopes. Some fly-ash would count as low-level nuclear waste if it came out of a nuclear power station. Tritium (the major source of nuclear exposure in most of the UK; completely natural as it is comes from granites and many mesozoic shale deposits that underlie a LOT of residential areas) is also released by combustion. That's not counting other forms of pollution from burning coal. I'd MUCH rather live downwind of a nuclear power station than a coal fired one.
 
...and also local wind power rather than on-grid...with local batteries...

also the coal power that we have should be combined heat and power instead of sending up masses of heat..
 
Tidal is intermittent - predictably so, but still intermittent, and so for effective use requires enormous investment in distribution facilities, with all the inefficiencies that entails. And, of course, major fixed tidal barrages come with their own environmental down-side. Solar has exactly the same baseline requirements as wind, and the manufacturing process is NOT environmentally friendly at present. And I assume that efficiency savings are an essential part - but despite headline figures about "wind turbine powers some improbably large number of households", domestic energy is not the major energy user in the UK. If we want to make real savings, it has to be at the industrial level - where there already is a strong commercial incentive to save energy!

Don't get me wrong - I'm not rubbishing renewable energy, I think they are a vital part of the mix. But for energy security, we've got to have just that - a mix. And that mix has to include things that work when the sun isn't shining (50% of the time at least!) and when the wind is either too little or too much - over 50% of the time on the most optimistic predictions. Most windfarms, are, I think, planned at 30% utilization, and I don't think many, if any, have achieved that figure.
 
Yes, but the distribution network you need to get power from where it is not slack water to where it is needed is a very large investment, and comes with built-in transmission losses. I imagine (without a tidal atlas to hand) that you could end up having to transmit energy from the Pentland Firth to the Midlands at some times of the day. And you'd need multiple pathways to avoid single points of failure. Not saying it's not feasible; just saying that it may not be the most cost-effective way of doing things.

From where I'm standing, the crucial thing to lose coal and oil from our energy economy ASAP, preferably sooner. There is really no such thing as "clean coal"; just coal with a white (or maybe green?) coat of paint on it. The best way of sequestering CO2 from coal and oil is not to dig the stuff up in the first place. If nuclear is part of the mix, well, the technical problems are actually all fixed; we can build fail-safe nuclear reactors these days. The real problems are political, and of course, the legacy of cold-war installations where plutonium generation was an unspoken part of the raison d'etre doesn't help!

My current car is a band A Road Fund License; I hope it is the last oil dependent vehicle I need to buy (reckoning on a long lifetime for my present machine). I'd hope my next car will be one which uses a suitable storage medium (batteries or hydrogen), whose fuel is derived from as clean a mix of generating facilities as we can manage.
 
The argument about the transmission network is the same whatever generation method you use (as long as you are generating remotely from consumers) and no one, as far as I know, is talking about neighbourhood nukes. In fact most are likely to be in places where damnfine tidal schemes could be set up!
 
http://www.hyperionpowergeneration.com/

Just in case you don't want to read it all....

"Hyperion Power Generation, Inc. (HPG) was formed to bring to market the unique Hyperion (formerly Comstar) small, modular, non-weapons grade nuclear power reactor invented by Dr. Otis “Pete” Peterson at the United States’ famed Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in New Mexico. Through the commercialization program at LANL’s Technology Transfer Division, HPG was awarded the exclusive license to utilize the intellectual property and develop a product that will benefit the U.S. economy and global society as a whole."

Hyperion Fast Facts

Small -1.5 meters across, approx size of a residential “hot tub”

Produces 70 MWt or 25 MWe, enough to power 20,000 average American homes or the equivalent

Buried underground out of sight and harm’s way

Transportable by train, ship, truck

Sealed module, never opened on site

Enough power for 5+ years

After 5 years, removed & refueled at original factory

Uniquely safe, self-moderating using a natural chemical reaction discovered 50 years ago

No mechanical parts in the core to malfunction

Water not used as coolant; cannot go “supercritical” or get too hot

No greenhouse gases or global warming emissions

Think: Large Battery!
 
It is criminal that the UK has not invested in its Grid including cross connectors to Europe and Norway and harvested tidal ( Pentland Firth has 25% of Europes tidal energy just swishing back and forth every day as long as moon is in the Sky )

Still we must all be be assured that the National Grid says it will be ok to saturate our shores and hills with wind farms by 2020 as when the wind does not blow nationwide ( normally on the peak load days in Jan) they expect to have predicted this better than today, and will get top up power from Europe as a lot of the old Nukes and Coal will have shut by then. If the high pressure covers Europe then the plan is they will give us their reserve power in preference to themselves- ohh just look at those cows and pigs flying over the moon mummy.
Never mind by then the smart meters will be able to cut all those on limited budgets and therefore on cheap tariffs off in times of shortage so the better off bankers and 'ankers can run on full demand untroubled by the old, ill and sick freezing down the road.
 
The offshore wind farms that I have seen rarely seem to be working at anything like their full capacity. Half the turbines are idle. I would be interested to know the actual power output from the existing offshore farms which have cost millions of pounds of taxpayers money in subsidy. Nuclear seems like a better option to me.
 
Looking to the future the surplus capacity at certain times (e.g. night times from nuclear & and peaks of generation from wind/wave/tide) might sensibly be utilised in the production of hydrogen from water as a portable fuel for either fuel cells or internal combustion engines.
 
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