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Scottish Wave Energy Plans Move Forward
It's been a long time coming (2007, 2005, and 2002 respectively), but the project to harness wave energy off the Scots coast is finally coming together. Reader krou writes: "The BBC is reporting that ten sites on the seabed off Scotland in Pentland Firth and around Orkney have been leased to energy companies with the hopes of generating wave and tidal energy. 'Six sites have been allocated for wave energy developments potentially generating 600 megawatts of power and four for tidal projects, also generating 600 MW.' The leases were awarded to SSE Renewables Developments, Aquamarine Power, ScottishPower Renewables, E.ON, Pelamis Wave Power, OpenHydro Site Developments, and Marine Current Turbines. Scotland's First Minister Alex Salmond said that 'These waters have been described as the Saudi Arabia of marine power and the wave and tidal projects unveiled today — exceeding the initial 700MW target capacity — underline the rich natural resources of the waters off Scotland.'"
The aim is to generate 1.2 gigawatts
I think they'll find they need another 10MW to achieve what they're really after....
Removing this energy from the ocean may cause an imbalance in the gravitational effects between the Earth and the Moon. Well, not imbalance, but rather a rebalance.
If we cause the Moon to move away from our planet, we lose both our astrodebris sweeper and more importantly our tide maker. Anthropogenic effects are real, and I'm not sure I'm happy to see the deliberate removal of energy from the ocean without further study on longterm planetary effects.
If it involves messing around with waves, there's usually a Scottsman involved somehow.
Have gnu, will travel.
I'm glad that blog has the word 'science' in its title, otherwise I would think it was a load of made up nonsense.
Insanity: voting in the same two parties over and over again and expecting different results
Depends where you are - if you live in Orkney, it's not remote, everywhere else is :-).
Not only that but by converting gravitational potential energy into heat we create photons which transfer momentum to the moon and push it away faster. I propose that all future lunar landings be on the far side to compensate.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
In fact, a "Wave Motion Gun!"
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
No, they're just going to fire the electricity into the air. They have no plans to actually deliver and sell it. You see, people who invest in this sort of thing simply hate money.
"It won't last; they're are natural enemies. Like Englishmen and Scots. Or Welshmen and Scots. Or Japanese and Scots. Or Scots and other Scots. Damn Scots, they ruined Scotland!"
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Well the English did try sending some of the Scots back to their native Ireland, but the other Irish complained about that rather vigourously with Semtex.
...it's crap!
Not really. We will be cheering on Algeria, Slovenia and USA in the world cup in June, and if that fails, we will have some more countries to cheer on. In the case of the USA, it wouldn't surpise me if there are more Scottish fans cheering on the team than natives.