Solving the UK's energy problems.

[SoulKiss]

Originally Posted by 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.

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



Hey radioactive oil - the power of carbon AND radioactivity.

Its got to be better than regular oil - right?

[peterco]

Originally Posted by 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. 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.



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

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

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