Solving the UK's energy problems.
 

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. 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 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/W...s/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

Where's the hole in the plan?

C

Re: Solving the UK's energy problems.
 

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

Re: Solving the UK's energy problems.
 

money to pay for it

Re: Solving the UK's energy problems.
 

cost

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

Re: Solving the UK's energy problems.
 

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

Re: Solving the UK's energy problems.
 

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

Re: Solving the UK's energy problems.
 

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.

Re: Solving the UK's energy problems.
 

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.

Re: Solving the UK's energy problems.
 

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.

Re: Solving the UK's energy problems.
 

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