What about tidal power

[Peaked2Soon]

There is a huge amount of energy in the tides and these are more predictable and constant than waves.

Is there any research on harnessing tidal power?

[isenhand]

I did see some years ago some research in to tidal power. However, it did not look promising at the time (don?t remember why) and I haven?t seen anything since.

[fishertrop]

On the face of it tidal power seems promising - you have all this movement of water everyday surely you can capture that energy in a useable way?

I remember seeing a huge tidal barrier in france that generated a fair bit of electricity in its optimal configuration - the thing that struck me about this one was that once you built it the power was essentially free, forever.

While we still have cheap-ish oil I would like to serious consideration given to building such installations which can keep running for little/no cost for decades, throughout periods of great shock or upheaval.

If you modularised the turbine and gernater assemblies you could fit them on every small stream and river mouth that empties into the sea.

[DamianB]

Here's a couple that I'm aware off.

http://www.wavegen.co.uk/

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/devon/2992996.stm

and

?If you take the Pentland Firth, you have a tidal race which runs between the North Sea and the Pentland Firth every day, twice a day. It is thoroughly predictable. At its peak, it?s running at close to eleven knots, which is an incredible amount of power. The down-time, when it?s turning to flow the other way, is relatively short. It has been said in various articles that if we could harness it properly, we?d have enough energy for tidal waves to drive the whole of Europe.?

Link

[GD]

Regen South West

Wave Hub would bridge the difficult gap between production prototypes and full commercial wave farms by providing the necessary infrastructure and legal frameworks to test new technology. It would provide wave device developers with a direct connection to the national grid 10 miles off the coast of North Cornwall, along with a simplified permitting and consenting regime to enable them to test their devices on a scale never seen before.
...
Dominic Vincent, the South West RDA?s energy manager, said: ?The feasibility studies proved that the South West of England has all the ingredients to become the global leader in this emerging technology, and that has given us the confidence to move to the next stage.
...
?Wave energy developers have shown enormous interest, as has the UK Government. All being well, we hope to see Wave Hub constructed off the coast of Cornwall by the middle of 2007 and have the UK?s first experimental wave farms in operation soon after that.?

The RDA?s feasibility studies have estimated that wave hub will cost about ?13 million to construct, and could lead to the creation of up to 700 jobs and contribute ?27 million a year to the South West economy as a result of the creation of a new wave power industry.

Wave devices attached to the hub would have a capacity of up to 30MW ? providing enough clean, renewable energy to power at least 14,000 homes and be a prototype for similar developments worldwide.

More about the Wave Hub



I can't seem to find anything regarding lifespan or the intermittency of the device though

[Sam172]

Just like to point out that our ancestors knew how to harness this.

Link to a local tidemill and how it works

http://www.tidemill.org.uk/about.html#Link3


Sadly it's not used anymore, and it's somewhat low key....but it shows that even with limited skills you're able to harness it

[isenhand]

Wiki has some information on tidal power

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tidal_power

[Joe]

The British Wind Energy Association has lots of info on marine renewable technologies and current UK projects here: http://www.bwea.com/marine/

[AlternativeEnergy]

Here is another Tidal Power resource. There you can find updated headlines about tidal energy - they also have a list of online tidal power resources at the bottom of the page. Looks like there are a great many exciting developments happening in the field of ocean and wave energy!

[GoatBoater]

I had always assumed that as the tide moves around the country that if properly harnessed then we could generate constant predictable power. Apparently though due to site limitations and some fluke of nature this is not possible as the tides all appear to be in phase. Nature being clever I suppose.

There is still a great deal of potential for this sort of power - although personally I am worried about what effect massive turning blades might have on pelaagic macro fuana.

One interesting project (and probably the most advanced) is Marine Current Turbines project in Strangford Loch in NI (http://www.marineturbines.com/projects.htm)

GB