Variation on wave power

An interesting article but I've always felt tidal power rather than wave or wind should be where we concentrate our efforts to develop renewable energy. My logic is quite simple. Wind blows - power, waves means power, no wind (or too much wind) or no waves means no power. Tide comes in, tide goes out everyday. It is regular, it is predictable and it is something that can be harnessed. A reversable submerged turbine should be able to harness energy with the tide flowing in either direction.

That all being said, I've found an article that explains why tidal has not had the same attention as other renewables. The main reason is economic but I'd argue that energy diversity is strategically far more important than the extra cost because (without dipping into politics) we have all seen how energy supplies can be weaponised.

climate.mit.edu

Why don’t we use tidal power more?

Tidal power is a promising renewable energy source, but production costs, a limited number of suitable locations, and technological challenges hinder its expansion.
climate.mit.edu climate.mit.edu
 
Tidal structures are for the most part low head, so efficiency would need to be relatively high. Still doable.
 
With tidal, there is both barrage - needing a lagoon - and tidal stream which doesn't. Barrage as it comments on in detail has quite a lot of ecological impact, tidal stream, if carefully managed, less so. But yes, tides are nothing to do with sun and wind and are predictable.

Incidentally this article on household heating was quite interesting
www.bbc.com

How flooded coal mines could heat homes

A quarter of the UK's homes sit above abandoned coal mines, long since flooded with water. Now, the mines are being put to a new, zero-carbon use.
www.bbc.com www.bbc.com
 
Montero said:
With tidal, there is both barrage - needing a lagoon - and tidal stream which doesn't. Barrage as it comments on in detail has quite a lot of ecological impact, tidal stream, if carefully managed, less so. But yes, tides are nothing to do with sun and wind and are predictable.
Click to expand...

Probably the biggest problem is economic. Building any tidal based energy capture systems right now will be a one-off custom work with lots of upfront infrastructure investment in the limited areas that tidal power will work well in - and given that the number of actual tidal power stations is few, the technology is currently expensive - there is little financial incentive to expand on that. Especially since solar and wind are doing so well.

The ecological impacts are probably understated and probably worth considering with any massive tidal project.

Wind and solar unit costs are dropping through the roof. As soon as we can get a reliable storage system for these variable sources, or things like DC power superconductor powerlines from solar cell farms in the Sahara, for example, then there will probably be no need to develop an expensive tech like tidal farms. Hell, solar and wind, and the infrastructure to get storage systems working, may well make nuclear fusion power completely unnecessary. Given that it's always 50 years till the fusion breakthrough...

....although if we're going into space, get lovely spaceships and live on other worlds, we're going to need those fusion reactors, I think. So we should continue to develop them. ;)
 
"But yes, tides are nothing to do with sun"

The Sun's contribution to tidal range is about 44% that of the moon.
 
Montero said:
With tidal, there is both barrage - needing a lagoon - and tidal stream which doesn't. Barrage as it comments on in detail has quite a lot of ecological impact, tidal stream, if carefully managed, less so. But yes, tides are nothing to do with sun and wind and are predictable.

Incidentally this article on household heating was quite interesting
www.bbc.com

How flooded coal mines could heat homes

A quarter of the UK's homes sit above abandoned coal mines, long since flooded with water. Now, the mines are being put to a new, zero-carbon use.
www.bbc.com www.bbc.com
Click to expand...
This reminds me of my very first job. It was in a cement works. Powdered coal was used to fire the kilns and so there was always a large stockpile on site. There were regular fires in the coal store when it rained and water leaked in. I didn't know until then that wet coal could spontanerously combust.
 
JimC said:
"But yes, tides are nothing to do with sun"

The Sun's contribution to tidal range is about 44% that of the moon.
Click to expand...
Common shorthand - I was referring to solar radiation - as in heat and light from the sun - which is the force behind solar PV, wind and therefore waves.
 
Foxbat said:
This reminds me of my very first job. It was in a cement works. Powdered coal was used to fire the kilns and so there was always a large stockpile on site. There were regular fires in the coal store when it rained and water leaked in. I didn't know until then that wet coal could spontanerously combust.
Click to expand...
It was something I learnt in my teens from reading tales of seafaring - cargo ships carrying coal having an added danger if they sprung a leak and some burning down to the waterline. Incidentally, a barn full of hay that has been brought in too damp can also overheat and catch fire. Meaning close packed bales. They always cook off a little on being brought in, but the trick if you have grass that is a bit green, or rain falling on some of the bales, is to put the wettest on the outside. You can put your hand on it and feel the warmth, some years.
 
Wind costs have gone back up somewhat recently with the various supply chain, parts , contractor costs going up.
 
Montero said:
It was something I learnt in my teens from reading tales of seafaring - cargo ships carrying coal having an added danger if they sprung a leak and some burning down to the waterline. Incidentally, a barn full of hay that has been brought in too damp can also overheat and catch fire. Meaning close packed bales. They always cook off a little on being brought in, but the trick if you have grass that is a bit green, or rain falling on some of the bales, is to put the wettest on the outside. You can put your hand on it and feel the warmth, some years.
Click to expand...
In the 70s we had a compost heap catch fire and the Fire Brigade had to be called. They raked it out across the garden and hosed it down for an hour. It made a hell of a mess and ended any hope of our family living The Good Life.
 
One very dry summer our somewhat gung-ho neighbour had a bonfire and set our very dry compost heap on fire and was then trying to quench it with a garden hose before it burnt down our shed - we were out at work. He was somewhere between apologetic and cross with us for having all that dry stuff around. My saying "compost heap" didn't have any weight - he was of the green desert school of gardening. (Same one who reduced some lovely old apple trees to five feet tall.)
 
Judderman said:
Wind costs have gone back up somewhat recently with the various supply chain, parts , contractor costs going up.
Click to expand...

Huh. Do you know anywhere to find data on reliability of the various renewables? We live in a turbine area and there are fairly regular instances of seeing repairs going on, or a turbine just not running and not tracking the wind (followed by seeing a van there and door open in the mast). Not working is not nearly as obvious with PV. I guess it is more by manufacturer than technology.
 
Montero said:
Huh. Do you know anywhere to find data on reliability of the various renewables? We live in a turbine area and there are fairly regular instances of seeing repairs going on, or a turbine just not running and not tracking the wind (followed by seeing a van there and door open in the mast). Not working is not nearly as obvious with PV. I guess it is more by manufacturer than technology.
Click to expand...
I haven't seen any statistics on particular wind farms available. But there are publications on the topic. I think in general turbines are reliable. 90% of the time there is enough wind (not too much) for offshore turbines to turn. It must be less for onshore. But I don't know often they are down for maintenance. Six monthly checks make sense. I wonder if the wind farm near you is old?
 
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