Re: Solving the UK's energy problems.
 

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

Re: Solving the UK's energy problems.
 

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.

Re: Solving the UK's energy problems.
 

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. Again it misses the point that if you spread the turbines, you spread the generating times...

Re: Solving the UK's energy problems.
 

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.

Re: Solving the UK's energy problems.
 

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.

Re: Solving the UK's energy problems.
 

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.

Re: Solving the UK's energy problems.
 

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

Re: Solving the UK's energy problems.
 

Where every Thomas, Richard & Harriet in the EC can help themselves?
I think not, Sir!

Re: Solving the UK's energy problems.
 

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:

Re: Solving the UK's energy problems.
 

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.