Scottish tidal energy has kept a underwater turbine spinning for 6 years
Scottish tidal energy has kept a underwater turbine spinning for 6 years
Submerged in about 40 meters of water off Scotland’s coast, a turbine has been spinning for more than six years to harness the power of ocean tides and generate electricity.
Submerged in about 40 meters (44 yards) of water off Scotland’s coast, a turbine has been spinning for more than six years....
The MeyGen tidal energy project off the coast of Scotland has four turbines producing 1.5 megawatts each, enough electricity collectively to power up to 7,000 homes annually.
You're viewing a single thread.
Not sure how feasible it is to roll this out large scale. There aren't that many stretches of water as lively as the pentland firth.
This is true, but I think the big thing is that this lasted as long as it did. Material science is important, and if we want Io scale these up for more general use we need to make sure they can at least survive.
Thanks to the power of two, a larger diameter blade could capture a lot more energy, and might be put in places with lesser tidal bores.
100 percent accurate because building benthic structures is incredibly hard. Having one with moving parts is even more crazy.
benthic
New word day for me!
The problem is not that there isn't enough tidal power. The problem is that the pentland firth is both fast enough and deep enough. Orkney alone probably has enough tidal power to serve all of Scotland's needs, but most of the tide races are no more than 5 meters deep. The meygen turbine has a 18 m diameter so it's hard to find places that can support it in a way that doesn't pose a danger for surface vessels but also has a current fast enough to generate a meaningful amount of electricity.
If we’re going to get to 100m diameter tidal power systems in hundreds of meters of water we’ve got to start somewhere.
Does ist matter? Even if its only a few places worldwide it makes sense ti develop them. Every bit of regenerative energy is important.
You could say the same about pumped storage hydroelectricity. There aren't that many places where you can store water on top of a mountain. Humanity still build a lot of pumped storage.
Not sure on the numbers, but in videos I've seen dozens of places where -all- the local power cud be tidally-generated, and I suspect there'd be hundreds of places around the world. Largely depends on the geology around the local tides.
For sure, but meygen is way too big for most fast moving tide races. And most places that are deep enough don't have a fast enough current. The pentland firth is unusual in that it is both deep enough and has a current in the order of around 10 - 15 knots in places. It flows like a relatively fast moving river. It's not a normal stretch of water.