New Tidal-Energy Testbed Launched In Devon

JaJ_D writes " According to the Beeb, Lynmonth in North Devon (in the south west of the UK) have just launched a new tidal energy generating system. The system is different to others by having the rotor blades fully under water and turning at about 20 rpm (so no harm to the fish). Each '...single 11 metre-long rotor blade will be capable of producing 300 kilowatts of electricity and will be a test-bed for further tidal turbines' Clean, relatively cheap and very little damage to the environment either by discharges or damage to the views. I wonder how many more will be made."

Comments

You are slowing the moon down!!!

[OwnerOfWhinyCat]

Stop it. Just STOP it!

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Re:You are slowing the moon down!!!

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

Cool bit of trivia: this is one of the few forms of commercial power generation that's not ultimately solar. Wind, hydro, fossil fuels, biomass and OTEC are all solar-driven or rely on stored solar energy.

The other two, geothermal and fission, depend on radioactive elements created in supernovas, so in a sense they're solar too, just using a different star from ours.

I'm impressed

[hawkbug]

I think that US states like California and Florida need to investigate energy strategies like this as soon as possible. With all these recent improvements with Solar, Wind, and now Tidal energy sources, I'm amazed that the US isn't doing more to utilize them.

Re:I'm impressed

[lirkbald]

They have. California, at least. If you take the 10 east from Los Angeles, you'll see literally thousands of windmills through some of the mountain passes. I think my electric bills usually indicate that one or two percent of my power is coming from wind power.

The problem with both wind and tidal is you can't just toss them up anywhere- you need somewhere with steady, fairly strong winds, or unusually large tides. I don't know much about tidal, but I doubt florida is going to have much luck with wind power- it's dead flat, and the best places for wind power tend to be mountain passes, which 'funnel' in the wind.

Re:I'm impressed

[fish_in_the_c]

That is not nessary true about the need for montians. You would note that it is also quite possible to build windmills in very flat areas because the wind picks up well there. IE. North Dakota has a lot of wind and so do most places in the ocean. I read an article. I thought it was around here somewhere about how all the greenpeace people who live on cape cod were suffering from not in my back yard syndrome over a proposed windmill project out in the ocean that would provide 70% of the power new england needed.

Re:I'm impressed

[Red Rocket]

...I doubt florida is going to have much luck with wind power- it's dead flat, and the best places for wind power tend to be mountain passes, which 'funnel' in the wind.

Which is why the next Americas Cup race will be held in Colorado.

Go ahead...

[Atario]

...swim through there. I dares ya. I DOUBLE DOG dares ya.

Glad to see us doing stuff about this

[loadquo]

The UK needs to do more offshore work on wind/wave and tides as this is the most likely schemes to work (solar, this is Britain we are talking about :), no thermal and little onshore Hydro to speak of).
We have lots of NIMBYs (not in my back yard) because of the eye sore etc. So underwater turbines should be good.
Tidal power is also good because it is predictable, if you are going to have a significant proportion of alternative energy (as one would hope to relieve independace form overseas if nothing else) then when the power outputs drops (the clouds come over etc). You need to replace this power with something like gas which needs to be quick to start up and always ready. The predictability of the tide allows the load balancing to be better managed so less gas needs to be used.

Weather patterns

[asdfx]

I'm curious as to what the long term effects of this would be. Indeed, there is a whole hell of a lot of water, but if this were our primary power source and there were hundreds or even thousands around the globe, what might be the outcome? If, for example, we were capable of decreasing the average wave height by 1" (which is completely arbitrary because I know too little about wave patterns :-p), that would probably lead to a change in wind patterns. This would, in turn, affect general weather patterns.

Although, I suppose this is more of a wind power thing. I'm not confident that this could be catastrophic. More of a hypothetical. ::shrug::

Re:Weather patterns

[fluffy666]

For your next excercise in applied science, calculate the total energy contained in tidal water movement in the Bristol channel. Then compare it to the total energy output of all the UK's power stations..

No harm to fish?!?

[isorox]

rotor blades fully under water and turning at about 20 rpm (so no harm to the fish).

Erm, 11m blades, spinning arround, mean the outside of the blades travel 3.14*2*11*20/60 metres per second, thats about 50mph. I wouldnt want to be hit by one of them!

Re:No harm to fish?!?

[mark2003]

It's not the speed of the balde that is important - rather the interval and the width of the blade. 20 RPM with two blades means a blade passes through any point every 1.5 seconds - it all depends if the fish can swim more than the width of the blade's cross-section in 1.5 seconds.

Er... sounds like a fish blender to me!

Re:No harm to fish?!?

[Muad'Dave]

You're assuming that the poor fish can see the blade coming in time to get out of the way - this is the north atlantic we're talking about. The fish wuold be lucky to see it 3 feet away.

Re:Now there's some good news.

[canthusus]

Hopefully, if this works, we could have the Severn Barrage back on the agenda

No.

The Severn Barrage is not a very environmentally friendly way of generating power, and would destroy hundreds of square miles of coastal and estuarine ecosystem.

The whole point of the underwater turbines is that there is very little impact on the ecosystem, or the atmosphere, or on "visual amenity". The only adverse effects I can think of are disturbance at the time of construction, and possible underwater noise (disturbing any cetaceans).

Looks like a truly great development - I really hope it proves successful.

More information.

[JaJ_D]

The beeb have released a Real audio file here. May be of interest

Jaj

Re:Now there's some good news.

[turgid]

Yes, and if they built new nuclear powerstations at Berkeley, Oldbury and Hinckley Point they could power a hell of a lot more too without producing any CO2. Not that I'm bitter about the decline of the Bristish nuclear industry or anything...

Hmmm mix this with John West

[schappim]

Now if only they mixed this with a John West Tinning Factory, you'd get the whole mushed fish thing, and free power!

You'd think

[Cackmobile]

that with tidal power, solar, wind and hydro we could run this planet through renewable source. We just need some tough decisions. I would mind a row of wind turbines off the coast of sydney if it got rid of the smog that hangs over the city. Here in oz our roofs should be made of solar cells. We could probably get enough power out of them to run the whole house even in summer.