Solving the UK's energy problems.

[Berlin]

So we live on an Island.

Oil, Coal, gas, jadda, jadda, going through the roof.

Wind power is great as long as its windy, Solar is greay as long as its light. Wave power is great as long as its wavey.

But there's one scourse of power that's free and always available (http://www.see.ed.ac.uk/~shs/Tidal%20Stream/April%2007%20I%20MechE%20papers/Blunden%20and%20Bahaj.pdf). Tides. Not the in and out kind as that stops at the top and at the bottom, the round about kind.

The gulf stream continually presents us with a flow of water that comes around the top of scotland and down the chanel and through the Irish sea. Now as the tides flood nd ebb the force increases and decreases but there's never a time where there is no flow. the high tide in newcastle is at a different time to london. and Anglesey, and Glasgow.

So why aren't we using undersea turbines (http://www.esru.strath.ac.uk/EandE/Web_sites/01-02/RE_info/Tidal%20Power.htm) to use this flow around the UK to generate power? If the national Grid was rigged so that the current flows east-west and west-east across the country, there would always be a flow on either one side or the other side of the country. (High and low tide on the east coast are at a different time to the same latitude on the west coast). If these underwater turbines were set out regularly around the coast and the electricity used to power the towns in a line across the country at that latitude then there would never be a dip in power levels. And in London, where most power is required, the north sea narows into the channel producing a stronger flow.

http://www.esru.strath.ac.uk/EandE/Web_sites/01-02/RE_info/Tidal%20power%20files/image016.jpg

Now thats a crazy daft picture because you wouldn't use an air propeller under the water but you could use a tubular impeller type blade with a funnel system and the tolerances and speed would be such that a fish could swim straight through it without being harmed.

Now if some clever type would care to work out how many of these turbines we would ned on the sea bed, I'll start planning where to put them. :)

They have tried it in the Orkneys but I don't think they saw the bigger picture (http://www.orkneycommunities.co.uk/OREF/documents/Tidal%20Stream%20Power%20for%20Orkney.pdf)

Where's the hole in the plan?

C

[the_lone_wolf]

If people weren't so hysterically opposed to nuclear power we'd be selling our surplus to the rest of Europe like France...

[Bluefish]

money to pay for it

[454697819]

cost

its is massively expensive and tricky to drill into the sea bed and maintenance is errr wet.

[Berlin]

But in Neuclear power we have to work at it. This is free, every day of the year, with zero emissions.

[yorkie_chris]

Putting stuff on the sea bed is a pain, why not have them on pontoons? Where's the current depth wise?
I've never dived in UK but in some places you can really notice a different current when you go from one side of thermocline layer to other.

How many turbines depends how big you make them... You could make them massive, the power potential is huge

[Berlin]

How much does a neuclear power plant cost? I'm sure you could buy a few dozen generators for that. The generators could be lowered to the sea bed and winched up for serviceing when required.

[Berlin]

If theya re on the sea bed, the only changes to navigation charts would be to add them as a foul hazard for fishing vessels. Shiping could pass right over them.

[Bluefish]

there is more current the nearer to the surface you are, so as yc says on pontoons makes sence, you then have a no go area to deal with.

[the_lone_wolf]

But in Neuclear power we have to work at it. This is free, every day of the year, with zero emissions.
And these turbine jobbies just grow magically from the seabed do they?;)

[andrewsmith]

Putting stuff on the sea bed is a pain, why not have them on pontoons? Where's the current depth wise?
I've never dived in UK but in some places you can really notice a different current when you go from one side of thermocline layer to other.

How many turbines depends how big you make them... You could make them massive, the power potential is huge

Your thinking about sea snake.
The theory on that is brilliant it was in the 1970's and 80's when it was trialled and the costs is not too major.

With regards to the Nuclear argument France is the leader in that but its the decommissioning that is the T***.
We're the first to consider full decommissioning and were spending all the cash so everyone can do it cheaper

[Berlin]

No, Not The Sea Snake (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcTNkoyvLFs), as thats wave generation. More like a load of these (http://www.tidalstream.co.uk/) but sub surface...

[yorkie_chris]

How much does a neuclear power plant cost? I'm sure you could buy a few dozen generators for that. The generators could be lowered to the sea bed and winched up for serviceing when required.



And these turbine jobbies just grow magically from the seabed do they?;)

Won't annoy the hippies as much as nuclear, which is a shame, but no fuel to have to launch expensively at brown people when it's spent.

Your thinking about sea snake.
The theory on that is brilliant it was in the 1970's and 80's when it was trialled and the costs is not too major.

Sea snake?

[Fruity-ya-ya]

I'm sure I read somewhere that as global warming melts the ice caps, the cold water will stall the gulf stream.

It does seem crazy that with all the tech we have available, that we haven't cracked this BIG problem yet.

[Teejayexc]

Why not excavate two large channels/pipelines across the middle of the country, say from Grimsby to Liverpool ?

Now taking the fact that high and low tides are at different times on the separate coasts, flow would run one way than back the other way, providing a constant flow for generating turbines etc, and because the water would be flowing in a 'managed' enviroment, t'would be easier to regulate.

Pie in the sky, I dunno, red wine helps with these thoughts. ;-)

[andrewsmith]

Sea snake?

Its wave farms to give them their correct name, geordie bumpkin error

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6410839.stm

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/may/06/anaconda-wave-power

[Berlin]

See above.

It seems the only argument for the use of these turbines is that they only produce power when the tide is running, but as its alwasy running at opposite sides of the country, then link them.


C

[yorkie_chris]

Well if they're both linked to the national grid.

Problem I have with it is when the tide isn't favourable you've got your expensive genset sat there scratching it's mechanical nuts.

I like the gulf stream idea. How fast is it going?

[andrewsmith]

See above.

It seems the only argument for the use of these turbines is that they only produce power when the tide is running, but as its alwasy running at opposite sides of the country, then link them.


C

There is always some sort of tide if theres winds. If there is no winds, were f***ed.

The one that the green batallion have in there bonnets is wind turbines.
The most pointless idea, as for example in the Alnwick area wind turbine on a building average winds speed 0.3 m/s it uses more that it generates

[yorkie_chris]

Tide isn't caused by the wind

[andrewsmith]

Been a f**kwit

Gravitational pull of ze moon causes the tides

[L3nny]

The main problem is it will take billions in investment and the benifits wont be reaped for 20-30 years.

Govenrments aren't interested in planning for the long term, all they are interested in are things that will make themselves look good as quickly as possible.

Additionally the oil rich countries invest a lot of money with british banks so the banks (who actually rule the country) don't want to upset them.

Not that I am synical or anything.

[thefallenangel]

Severn Barrage from cardiff to weston super mare if built would provide 7% of the UK's power for at least 200 years. The problem is initial investment, who maintains it and how far do you go building it, do you incorporate a motorway, railway line too and plus the eco warrior idiots.

This country complains about the weather but the weather is going to be the best way to get us out of our predicament with power shortages and hopefully be another way to bring Africa out of poverty if someone with half ounce of sense finds a way to solar panel half the countries and generate power for them to use.

[yorkie_chris]

Been a f**kwit

Gravitational pull of ze moon causes the tides

If we're on about harnessing the gulf stream, I believe that's a massive convection current caused by solar heat.


Govenrments aren't interested in planning for the long term, all they are interested in are things that will make themselves look good as quickly as possible.

A huge project to create millions of pounds of engineering work which could be all British, to create a massive source of green energy at low cost. How good do they want to look!?

I reckon the turbines could be built fairly cheaply. Then again does any company in Britain still know how to do proper engineering like massive iron castings and stuff?

Sod it I'm going to build one in my shed to show em how!

[thedonal]

Nar.

Put everyone who's in prison on a treadmill. They'd maybe pay for their keep then!

[andrewsmith]

Sod it I'm going to build one in my shed to show em how!

http://i1034.photobucket.com/albums/a426/andrewsmith1708/e-needpics.gif

[yorkie_chris]

I mean come on, in 1866 Brunel laid a cable across the Atlantic. It can't be that a couple of glorified pond pumps are beyond us.

[punyXpress]

Why not excavate two large channels/pipelines across the middle of the country, say from Grimsby to Liverpool ?

Now taking the fact that high and low tides are at different times on the separate coasts, flow would run one way than back the other way, providing a constant flow for generating turbines etc, and because the water would be flowing in a 'managed' enviroment, t'would be easier to regulate.

Pie in the sky, I dunno, red wine helps with these thoughts. ;-)

First dibs the white water rafting & kayaking rights!

[Electro]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jzxw1j-dzY4

Starter solar heat system

[yorkie_chris]

If you like ideas like that check out the half bakery :)

One idea suggested connecting a rack and pinion and a massive step up gearbox to 2 tectonic plates :-D

[punyXpress]

If you like ideas like that check out the half bakery :)

One idea suggested connecting a rack and pinion and a massive step up gearbox to 2 tectonic plates :-D

Hate to say it, but weren't the Japanese trying just that?

[beabert]

Less than 5mph average, good luck.

The barrage is a dam and the severn mouth is a tunnel, so the water is accelerated. Done correctly there is no gaps in the power.

[Berlin]

Tides generally run at 4-12 knots along the eastern coast in a southerly direction. I'm not sure about the Irish sea but the tides on the west coast are twice the height as those on the east coast in some areas. (5.5m ish average tide in Northumberland 8.5 ish in Cumbria. Driven by the Gulf stream and of course the moon.

Now, speed is not important as the turbine can be designed to work ona gearbox as the sheer weight of the water is enough to run a very high torque generator. It may only be spinning at 20-50rpm in the water but with so much power available that could generate huge wattage either via a large generator or via a geared smaller generator.

and even as the tide ebbs and floods there is still lateral flow along the coast (ask the folks in Norfolk who's houses are falling into the sea).

Here are the figures for the North West of Scotland and another section of tidal energy (http://www.esru.strath.ac.uk/EandE/Web_sites/03-04/marine/res_resourceanys.htm). Again it misses the point that if you spread the turbines, you spread the generating times...

[beabert]

If people weren't so hysterically opposed to nuclear power we'd be selling our surplus to the rest of Europe like France...

The problem is IF one does go wrong you could have a huge no go area. Chernobyl one is 60km in diameter, in Russia its insignificant, but in UK an area the size of greater London is mahoooooosive.

[yorkie_chris]

Mate try and swim against a 5mph current and tell me it's not got the power to do something!

Consider a simple case, we know wind turbines work well, the density of air is about 1.22521kgm^-3, water is about 1000kgm^-3.
So in terms of the momentum in any flow stream, that piddly 5mph has the same potential as a wind of a few thousand miles per hour!


Personally I would design them as large S type vertical axis turbines, the base would be large and concrete to be cheap and not need anchoring. They could be connected by a cable supplying a simple power and data out and possibly compressed air to blow part of the structure dry to aid recovery. Much easier if you can float them back up. They'd be very cheap.


Funny enough carnivore has a model of vertical axis turbines in matlab. I believe it should give a reasonable approximation of water instead of air to see how much turbine you'd need for a certain amount of grunt.

[beabert]

Tides generally run at 4-12 knots along the eastern coast in a southerly direction. I'm not sure about the Irish sea but the tides on the west coast are twice the height as those on the east coast in some areas. (5.5m ish average tide in Northumberland 8.5 ish in Cumbria. Driven by the Gulf stream and of course the moon.

Now, speed is not important as the turbine can be designed to work ona gearbox as the sheer weight of the water is enough to run a very high torque generator. It may only be spinning at 20-50rpm in the water but with so much power available that could generate huge wattage either via a large generator or via a geared smaller generator.

and even as the tide ebbs and floods there is still lateral flow along the coast (ask the folks in Norfolk who's houses are falling into the sea).

Here are the figures for the North West of Scotland and another section of tidal energy (http://www.esru.strath.ac.uk/EandE/Web_sites/03-04/marine/res_resourceanys.htm). Again it misses the point that if you spread the turbines, you spread the generating times...

I assumed you were talking way off coast in international waters. No one wants to put the money down to invest. Everyone crys when their bills go up.

[punyXpress]

All of a sudden 900cc not enough, Chris? ;)

[punyXpress]

I assumed you were talking way off coast in international waters. No one wants to put the money down to invest. Everyone crys when their bills go up.
Where every Thomas, Richard & Harriet in the EC can help themselves?
I think not, Sir!

[beabert]

Mate try and swim against a 5mph current and tell me it's not got the power to do something!

Consider a simple case, we know wind turbines work well, the density of air is about 1.22521kgm^-3, water is about 1000kgm^-3.
So in terms of the momentum in any flow stream, that piddly 5mph has the same potential as a wind of a few thousand miles per hour!


Personally I would design them as large S type vertical axis turbines, the base would be large and concrete to be cheap and not need anchoring. They could be connected by a cable supplying a simple power and data out and possibly compressed air to blow part of the structure dry to aid recovery. Much easier if you can float them back up. They'd be very cheap.


Funny enough carnivore has a model of vertical axis turbines in matlab. I believe it should give a reasonable approximation of water instead of air to see how much turbine you'd need for a certain amount of grunt.

I was comparing the concept to the Severn barrage project, you get a huge amount of power per turbine, vs turbines just placed in farm in open water.

The barrage can provide 5% of UK energy for around 30 billion?. Id imagine you would need a huge tidel farm costing significantly more to get close, i would imagine the up keep would be higher too? These are assumptions.

I'm no expert, but id assume there is a practical reason to why we don't here much about huge under water farms projects.

What ****es me off is the green people moaning about a few thousand birds being inconvenienced if the barrage was built :rolleyes:

[yorkie_chris]

I was comparing the concept to the Severn barrage project, you get a huge amount of power per turbine, vs turbines just placed in farm in open water.

Well we haven't seen figures for deep tidal turbines yet. If they're something that you can just drop in the sea by the hundred cheaply, without environmental costs, well worth it.
Maybe even just replace them when done, they'd be brilliant for the fish.

We need about 1.5x10^18 J/year or about 4.75x10^10 W. That's a big number.

[Berlin]

But the barage is a huge barrier than mot only affects birds but an entire ecosystem.

Now why have the barage, why not sink the generators into the water without the barage? becasye they have either a) Blinkered thinking or b) concrete is cheaper than generators so they just put 4 in the middle and let all the water flow though those.

Just think if all of that money putting up Wind turbines (if which there are now tens of thousands) had been put to use putting them underwater. There is always a tide*, but not always a wind.

*Tide being used to also incorporate current. and best of all we know *exactly* how much current and tide there will be, unlike wind which is highly unpredictable.

also tick off the Eye sore problem, You can't complainabout underwater turbines ruining the view.

and the irony of building offshore windfarms is extreme. The have sunk pillars into the sea bed off the coast to make use of a fluid (air) flowing to generate power when they had to build the bases IN a vastly more superior fluid (water) to use for generating power!.

It looks like a) Blinkered thinking

C

[yorkie_chris]

A quick bit of wikipedia suggests 15GW peak power. Wonder what the average power is.

BTW with us needing 4.5x10^10 W 15GW isn't going to take the edge off that, and it would be a shortsighted bit of idiocy to wreck every tidal estuary we have.



With them being sunk they're below the weather so unlikely to be damaged by storms etc.

Going on a hippy bent, S type turbines could easily be caged to avoid any risk to whales or anything, or even left alone they'd be fairly slow moving so probably no threat to sea life. The bases would make brilliant habitats for the fishies too.

[L3nny]

A huge project to create millions of pounds of engineering work which could be all British, to create a massive source of green energy at low cost. How good do they want to look!?

Things in government move pretty slowly. By the time this is all up and running the current lot may have been voted out leaving the new ones to take all the credit. People have short memories so when it comes to voting again they will think, I'll vote for this lot again, my electricity bills are half what they were under the ones before them.

[yorkie_chris]

Why does it have to be government? Get a working prototype built and attract private investors.

[L3nny]

Why does it have to be government? Get a working prototype built and attract private investors.

Good point. Get back in that shed!

[Berlin]

If people weren't so hysterically opposed to nuclear power we'd be selling our surplus to the rest of Europe like France...

Says the man, 12 hours before a Neuclear power station explodes in Japan.

;)

[phi-dan]

okay, so it's not looking at tidal power, but the wave hub is setting up a test bed for wave / tidal based power systems http://www.wavehub.co.uk/, it's like a massive underwater 4-gang :-)

[Bluefish]

Says the man, 12 hours before a Neuclear power station explodes in Japan.

;)

nuclear, mmm scratch that. When these turbines do eventually get dropped in the sea, the area will become a no fishing or no go zone, so will become a haven for the wildlife, i'm going to stick a generator in my plughole so every time i empty the bath free energy, lol.

[SoulKiss]

Says the man, 12 hours before a Neuclear power station explodes in Japan.

;)

nuclear, mmm scratch that. When these turbines do eventually get dropped in the sea, the area will become a no fishing or no go zone, so will become a haven for the wildlife, i'm going to stick a generator in my plughole so every time i empty the bath free energy, lol.

Meh to that.

Never heard of a Pebblebed Reacto (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pebble_bed_reactor)r?

[andrewsmith]

Says the man, 12 hours before a Neuclear power station explodes in Japan.

;)

Mercifully that explosion was radioactive steam and not the rods. They're hoping that it does what happened at 3 mile Island.

Going on to other things mentioned the tides are predictable up to 5 years in advance (if I've remembered my Alevel geography) so you can roughly predict what shortfall/ surplus that there will be.

TBH France went the right way in the 1950's and 60's as they now know exactly how to develop and manage the nuclear process.

Shame that the waste still ends up at Windscale

[timwilky]

Silly silly ideas

What we need is a few new clean coal power plants, carbon sequestration, etc. We went daft with the dash for gas in the 80s and forgot this rock was sat on a big rock of coal which we allowed to degrade because we could not be bothered to preserve the existing deep mines as "world" coal drift mined and shipped over from Austrailia etc was considered so much cheaper.

The past 20 years should have been spent putting us leaders in clean coal technology now we are having to buy in gas and building huge LPG ports and storage.

Still my company does the convential island for nuclear, or full turnkey for coal and combine cycle. So unless the world suddenly invents a new power source you are still going to need us. We even built LPG tankers until we sold the shipping building bit.

[EssexDave]

Thorium based nuclear reactors...

Thorium as a nuclear fuel

Thorium, as well as uranium and plutonium (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutonium), can be used as fuel in a nuclear reactor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_reactor). A thorium fuel cycle offers several potential advantages over a uranium fuel cycle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium_fuel_cycle) including much greater abundance (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium#Occurrence) on Earth, superior physical and nuclear properties of the fuel, enhanced proliferation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_proliferation) resistance, and reduced nuclear waste production. Nobel laureate Carlo Rubbia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlo_Rubbia) at CERN (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CERN) (European Organization for Nuclear Research), has worked on developing the use of thorium as a cheap, clean and safe alternative to uranium in reactors. Rubbia states that a tonne of thorium can produce as much energy as 200 tonnes of uranium, or 3,500,000 tonnes of coal.[14] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium#cite_note-Pritchard-13) One of the early pioneers of the technology was U.S. physicist Alvin Weinberg (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alvin_Weinberg) at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oak_Ridge_National_Laboratory) in Tennessee, who helped develop a working nuclear plant using liquid fuel in the 1960s.
Some countries are now investing in research to build thorium-based nuclear reactors. In May 2010, researchers from Ben-Gurion University (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben-Gurion_University) in Israel and Brookhaven National Laboratory (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brookhaven_National_Laboratory) in New York, received a three-year Energy Independence Partnership Grant to collaborate on the development of a self-sustainable fuel cycle for light water reactors.[15] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium#cite_note-Israel-14) According to the Israeli nuclear engineer, Eugene Shwageraus, their goal is a self-sustaining reactor, "meaning one that will produce and consume about the same amounts of fuel," which is not possible with uranium. He states, "the better choice is thorium, whose nuclear properties offer considerable flexibility in the reactor core design." Some experts believe that the energy stored in the earth's thorium reserves is greater than what is available from all other fossil and nuclear fuels combined.[15] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium#cite_note-Israel-14)
[edit (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Thorium&action=edit&section=10)] Key benefits

According to Australian science writer Tim Dean, "thorium promises what uranium never delivered: abundant, safe and clean energy - and a way to burn up old radioactive waste."[16] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium#cite_note-Dean-15) With a thorium nuclear reactor, Dean stresses a number of added benefits: there is no possibility of a meltdown, it generates power inexpensively, it does not produce weapons-grade by-products, and will burn up existing high-level waste as well as nuclear weapon stockpiles.[16] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium#cite_note-Dean-15) Ambrose Evans-Pritchard (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambrose_Evans-Pritchard), of the British Telegraph daily, suggests that "Obama could kill fossil fuels overnight with a nuclear dash for thorium," and could put "an end to our dependence on fossil fuels within three to five years."[14] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium#cite_note-Pritchard-13)
The Thorium Energy Alliance (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Thorium_Energy_Alliance&action=edit&redlink=1) (TEA), an educational advocacy organization, emphasizes that "there is enough thorium in the United States alone to power the country at its current energy level for over 1,000 years." [17] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium#cite_note-TEA-16) Reducing coal as an energy source, according to science expert Lester R. Brown (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lester_R._Brown) of The Earth Policy Institute (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_Policy_Institute) in Washington DC, would significantly reduce medical costs from breathing coal pollutants. Brown estimates that coal-related deaths and diseases are currently costing the U.S. up to $160 billion annually."[18] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium#cite_note-Brown-17)






simples?

[Quedos]

Here are the figures for the North West of Scotland and another section of tidal energy (http://www.esru.strath.ac.uk/EandE/Web_sites/03-04/marine/res_resourceanys.htm). Again it misses the point that if you spread the turbines, you spread the generating times...

Hands off you lot!! our tidal farms and wind farms are for us lot north of the border - None of this coming up to nick our production. We have to make something of the crap weather we get.;)

[amnesia]

What happens when the coal runs out?

At some point energy from our finite resources has to be replaced.

Maybe you could argue that the longer we can burn fossil fuels, the better our engineering appreciation will be for alternatives such as tidal. Getting that past the greens would be a challenge.

[amnesia]

Hands off you lot!! our tidal farms and wind farms are for us lot north of the border - None of this coming up to nick our production. We have to make something of the crap weather we get.;)

Might be north of the border, but a whole bunch of the power electronics for 'your' wind turbines was designed and built in the midlands. ;)

We will loan them to you for a while though

[Quedos]

Might be north of the border, but a whole bunch of the power electronics for 'your' wind turbines was designed and built in the midlands. ;)

We will loan them to you for a while though

Damn - always one put waters on the coals!!:D

[andrewsmith]

Might be north of the border, but a whole bunch of the power electronics for 'your' wind turbines was designed and built in the midlands. ;)

We will loan them to you for a while though

and Northumberland :smt016

[amnesia]

and Northumberland :smt016


Northumberland? Who's that then?

[davepreston]

sorry if im stating the obvious here but after seeing that pic berlin put up of the under water propeller, i just thought why not go double bubble and put a wind on on top, wave underneath wind on top

[EssexDave]

sorry if im stating the obvious here but after seeing that pic berlin put up of the under water propeller, i just thought why not go double bubble and put a wind on on top, wave underneath wind on top


With a thorium reactor in the middle? :smt069

[andrewsmith]

Northumberland? Who's that then?

Well Blyth, which needs a nuclear bomb dropped on it

[SoulKiss]

With a thorium reactor in the middle? :smt069

Pebble Bed?

[metalangel]

What happens when the coal runs out?

There's plenty left in pits closed by Thatcher.

Anyone heard of using ammonia (http://www.greennh3.com/) as a miracle fuel?

[amnesia]

There's plenty left in pits closed by Thatcher.

Anyone heard of using ammonia (http://www.greennh3.com/) as a miracle fuel?


But what happens when it runs out? Sod carbon footprint - when the stuff that burns is all burnt, the size of our dirty black footprint will be the least of our worries.

[andrewsmith]

There's plenty left in pits closed by Thatcher.

Anyone heard of using ammonia (http://www.greennh3.com/) as a miracle fuel?

Its just a pig to produce tho and very unstable, hence why fertiliser is a very good explosive

[metalangel]

Their FAQ says otherwise, but okay.

As for coal... there's enough for centuries yet. Yes, it'll run out, the sun will burn out eventually too, are you planning for that?

[SoulKiss]

The problem is IF one does go wrong you could have a huge no go area. Chernobyl one is 60km in diameter, in Russia its insignificant, but in UK an area the size of greater London is mahoooooosive.

Actually no, they are still the same size :p

[amnesia]

Their FAQ says otherwise, but okay.

As for coal... there's enough for centuries yet. Yes, it'll run out, the sun will burn out eventually too, are you planning for that?


Sarcasm...gotta love it.

[Bibio]

fart in a gas meter...

[BanannaMan]

Nuke the entire middle east region and take over.
Flood the world market with oil thus reducing fuel prices.
Use the rest of the land as the world's toxic waste dump.
Fuel prices solved.
World economy problems solved.
Pollution problems solved.
Terrorist problems sloved. (Use their charred dead bodies for runway lights)


That is all.

[SoulKiss]

Nuke the entire middle east region and take over.
Flood the world market with oil thus reducing fuel prices.
Use the rest of the land as the world's toxic waste dump.
Fuel prices solved.
World economy problems solved.
Pollution problems solved.
Terrorist problems sloved. (Use their charred dead bodies for runway lights)


That is all.

You're just quoting the US Foreign Policy aren't you?

:p

Hey radioactive oil - the power of carbon AND radioactivity.

Its got to be better than regular oil - right?

[peterco]

So we live on an Island.

Oil, Coal, gas, jadda, jadda, going through the roof.

Wind power is great as long as its windy, Solar is greay as long as its light. Wave power is great as long as its wavey.

But there's one scourse of power that's free and always available (http://www.see.ed.ac.uk/~shs/Tidal%20Stream/April%2007%20I%20MechE%20papers/Blunden%20and%20Bahaj.pdf). Tides. Not the in and out kind as that stops at the top and at the bottom, the round about kind.

The gulf stream continually presents us with a flow of water that comes around the top of scotland and down the chanel and through the Irish sea. Now as the tides flood nd ebb the force increases and decreases but there's never a time where there is no flow. the high tide in newcastle is at a different time to london. and Anglesey, and Glasgow.

So why aren't we using undersea turbines (http://www.esru.strath.ac.uk/EandE/Web_sites/01-02/RE_info/Tidal%20Power.htm) to use this flow around the UK to generate power? If the national Grid was rigged so that the current flows east-west and west-east across the country, there would always be a flow on either one side or the other side of the country. (High and low tide on the east coast are at a different time to the same latitude on the west coast). If these underwater turbines were set out regularly around the coast and the electricity used to power the towns in a line across the country at that latitude then there would never be a dip in power levels. And in London, where most power is required, the north sea narows into the channel producing a stronger flow.

http://www.esru.strath.ac.uk/EandE/Web_sites/01-02/RE_info/Tidal%20power%20files/image016.jpg

Now thats a crazy daft picture because you wouldn't use an air propeller under the water but you could use a tubular impeller type blade with a funnel system and the tolerances and speed would be such that a fish could swim straight through it without being harmed.

Now if some clever type would care to work out how many of these turbines we would ned on the sea bed, I'll start planning where to put them. :)

They have tried it in the Orkneys but I don't think they saw the bigger picture (http://www.orkneycommunities.co.uk/OREF/documents/Tidal%20Stream%20Power%20for%20Orkney.pdf)

Where's the hole in the plan?

C
Tidal energy scheme of the coast of islay
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-12767211

[Berlin]

There's some useful figures there.

£40M buys you 10 turbines installed, so thats a cost of £4m each.

Thats enough to power 5000 homes at a cost of £8000 per home.

and of course, theya re imported (from Norway) because we have no way of making them ourselves, what with out crappy history of not being able to make things.

Anyone think they could make and install a turbine for less than 4 Million?

C

[timwilky]

Working for a company that makes turbines

Gas, steam, wind and hydro. It is not necassary to have the manufacturing resource in the UK. (Although it would be nice) You just need to make them somewhere where it is economic for the region.

I doubt on the samall scale for this prototype any UK or major european manufacturer would be interested. Once the technology is proven and orders for 1000s can be seen we will all be clambering for that horse in our stable