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I've been fascinated for years by tidal power and small-scale experiments into it. Something as simple as a float tied to the sea floor around a flywheel is an
by noduerme 5y ago
I've been fascinated for years by tidal power and small-scale experiments into it. Something as simple as a float tied to the sea floor around a flywheel is an almost limitless small-scale energy source. It would be amazing to see wave power scaled up to fuel entire islands. Cheaper battery costs are the big mover here; once it's possible to store enough energy on-island you can cut the fuel imports and the investment becomes much more attractive.
- helsinkiandrew 5y agoIn the UK various consortiums have proposed building a barrage in the Severn estuary, between England and Wales (going back to 1850) - its 12M tidal range could create 8.6GW of power, but the huge environmental impact have made it too controversial. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severn_Barrage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severn_Barrage
- noduerme 5y ago8.6GW. Incredible. But I don't think fully damming the tide is necessarily the best answer. Of course, every energy source has ecological trade-offs, even solar plants and windmills. Being serious, you can't complain about third world poverty, nuclear plants, carbon emissions, hydro plants and salmon runs at the same time unless you want to eliminate human civilization altogether. You have to accept the lesser of many evils if you think humans are worth it. But with so much potential energy, a network of small, cheap generators (the seed, not the feed, like Stephenson said) could have very low environmental impact, just sitting on the seafloor. I'm also interested in the idea of self-contained desalination units that operate on tidal power. I drew up plans for one when I was a teenager and the idea seems so under-used.