3 ms·

This misses two power sources, the first (and actually used on commercial scales) is geothermal - I can't find anything on land area usage, but I recall driving

by olliej 4y ago

This misses two power sources, the first (and actually used on commercial scales) is geothermal - I can't find anything on land area usage, but I recall driving through wairakei and just seeing giant masses of pipes periodically being visible in the bush. In NZ it represents 17% (per wikipedia) of the countries power, and is the most stable source of power as it isn't dependent on rain, sun, or wind. The other more reasonably ignored option is wave based generation. In principle wave generators could generate large amounts of reliable power, but I can't recall any commercial plants in operation. There's one article I found about commercial power generation in Australia [1], but it's a single generator producing only 200kW. [1] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-07-31/wave-power-generator-supplying-king-island-with-electricity/101282070 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-07-31/wave-power-generator-...

lbriner 4y ago
There are groups trying to solve the problem of drilling deep enough to tap into geothermal in countries that don't have fissures useable enough for this like NZ and Iceland. At the depths we can currently get to, we are looking at heat-pump technology rather than the ability to drive steam turbines. As for wave generation, the problem afaik is simply the hostile environment of the sea and how long the equipment will last in what is basically a large electrolyte! There are a lot of experiments and some small scale production north of Scotland but after a few years, the equipment simply corrodes away. One example: https://www.offshore-mag.com/renewable-energy/article/14203296/wave-energy-prototype-arrives-at-orkney-ahead-of-trials https://www.offshore-mag.com/renewable-energy/article/142032...
- olliej 4y ago
  Oh, I understand the why of wave energy being challenging, there's a huge amount of energy available to be harnessed, but on the other hand there's a huge amount of energy being put into any equipment, before you even have to deal with the generally hostile environment created by salt water. I was just saying I was aware that plenty of orgs are trying to develop commercially viable methods and didn't know if any had got to anything beyond small scale testing yet :D

by olliej 4y ago

lbriner 4y ago

There are groups trying to solve the problem of drilling deep enough to tap into geothermal in countries that don't have fissures useable enough for this like NZ and Iceland. At the depths we can currently get to, we are looking at heat-pump technology rather than the ability to drive steam turbines. As for wave generation, the problem afaik is simply the hostile environment of the sea and how long the equipment will last in what is basically a large electrolyte! There are a lot of experiments and some small scale production north of Scotland but after a few years, the equipment simply corrodes away. One example: https://www.offshore-mag.com/renewable-energy/article/14203296/wave-energy-prototype-arrives-at-orkney-ahead-of-trials https://www.offshore-mag.com/renewable-energy/article/142032...

olliej 4y ago
Oh, I understand the why of wave energy being challenging, there's a huge amount of energy available to be harnessed, but on the other hand there's a huge amount of energy being put into any equipment, before you even have to deal with the generally hostile environment created by salt water. I was just saying I was aware that plenty of orgs are trying to develop commercially viable methods and didn't know if any had got to anything beyond small scale testing yet :D