STW: font of all knowledge: Tidal power

There was an episode of a podcast I was listening to last month (The Bunker, maybe) which talked about this. The biggest problems are the fact that the sea is an incredibly hostile place for machinery, and you don’t want to impact nature too much.

If pelamis technology was viable, I would imagine you could buy the IP from wave energy Scotland for bobbins.

I’ll be genuinely surprised if we see commercial wave or tidal power on any significant scale in my lifetime.

One of the pelarmis ‘snakes’ is sat at Hatston docks in Kirkwall if you’re ever there. Quite cool to look at, pity it’s not doing anything.

Yes i said that now read it again in context. Its factual. I do not say conspiracy. The oil co was looking to make short term savings and pulled the funding thus killing the company.

Crunchbase suggests that the oil co took part in rounds 1 and 2 of funding but declined to participate in the 3rd round.

They were investors not partners.

They were not committed to anything to pull funding.

Yes i said that now read it again in context. Its factual. I do not say conspiracy

I did – it was the context that screamed it’s all a conspiracy – while you didn’t type those words your posts certainly gave the impression that you were stopping short of typing the word. – others see it too.

As I pointed out on P1. Yaaaaaawn!

One of the problems with offshore power generation is, connecting to the national grid and transporting the electricity to where it is needed.
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/electricity-network-delivery-and-access

A problem with renewable energy in general is, getting enough natural gas to fill in, the gaps in power generation that occur due to the variable nature of wind, sun, drought, tides.
Even oil and gas companies doubt that there could be enough natural gas.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-gas-supply-explainer

Governments

One of the problems with offshore power generation is, connecting to the national grid and transporting the electricity to where it is needed.

This is true on a number of levels.

One of the issues, which is a bit of a crisis for offshore wind, is the huge number of faulty sub sea power cables. There is something like 15% or 20% of them fail.

They are hugely expensive and complex.

ABB used to make a lot of them and have now pulled out of the business as they had that many failures.

@tjagain, apologies if you took that the wrong way, not accusing you of anything.

Cock up? Yes, possibly, probably also due to the problems discussed here being complex and hard to solve with a very human flaw of people wanting simple quick fixes hence the “Dash for Gas” twenty years back, North Sea Oil boom in the early 70’s (without creating a Norway-style Sovereign wealth fund to go with it) or King Coal in the late 19th and 20th centuries.

No apology needed

It just makes me laugh that a simple factual statement with no motive attibuted to the actions discussed makes folk scream conspiracy theory.

As I think someone said earlier, the fact that wind and solar are going in all over the place suggests there’s no conspiracy against renewables.

We do certainly need got investment in these things anyway, of course but that’s Tories for you.

We do certainly need got investment in these things anyway, of course but that’s Tories for you.

I am assuming that you were not impressed with the Ronald Reagan quote posted above?

Unfortunately although things are clearly shifting that sort of attitude still has widespread support.

Although ironically apparently less so among the general public than among senior UK politicians.

I see the Edinburgh defence is evolving.

Lack of investment by this country wouldn’t mean wave or tidal wouldn’t be developed elsewhere if it was viable. Denmark invested early and heavily in wind and now danish companies dominate the wind industry.

This is the most successful tidal project to date:

MeyGen set for additional 28MW of tidal energy

This article doesn’t tell you the full story sadly. This project has been plagued by technical problems and investors have looked at its track record and wondered why they would take the additional risks over investing in offshore wind which is far better established and much cheaper.

The scale that’s required to make tidal economical means it’s incredibly risky.

Jambo. Apart from few countries have the geography for flow tidal. Which is a part of the issue. Not much of an export market for tbe tech. Scotland has the vast majority of the flow tidal potential in Europe . Other countries have lagoon or barrage tidal potential which is related but different tech

@jambo, my thoughts exactly.

Apart from few countries have the geography for flow tidal.

Are you really sure about that?

Apart from few countries have the geography for flow tidal.

Are you really sure about that?

It’s pretty true.

There are not many places on the planet that have the tidal ranges of the UK.

Yes. Tell me another that has anything like scotlands potential for FLOW tidal.

I cant be arsed checking the numbers but scotaland has the vast majority of the potential European flow tidal.

Prove me wrong.

Norway has some. I dont think anyone else has anything significant

Its not just the tidal range. Its also deep channels with constrictions so high flow speeds and large moving water mass Hence pentland firth and sound of islay are some of tbe best sites worldwide

Now those if you slagging me off. Put up or shut up

Ive been folliwing this for decades

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Global-tidal-energy-potential-Source-1_fig1_340372849

Yup. Proves what i said. Scotland has the vast majority of European tidal flow.

Now how about an apology as your link agrees with my point

The world is bigger than Europe.

You can take it personally if you like, but the fact remains there has been ample opportunity and a lot of funding to try and get tidal and wave energy off the ground. It’s failed consistently and repeatedly to bridge the valley of death.

I’m not anti tidal or wave power. I just don’t think it’s ever going to be viable.

So i said FEW other countries and MAJORITY of Europes

your link agees with me.

Apology?

What I posted is exactly what you link shows

How I see this thread ending.

Fine, it’s one of few places. It’s also the large majority of Europe.

It’s still not viable.

Thank you.

One of the issues, which is a bit of a crisis for offshore wind, is the huge number of faulty sub sea power cables. There is something like 15% or 20% of them fail.

Unless you can provide the source for that I suggest you are confusing an old cable protection failure headline with cable failure