OT: Ramblings on Tidal Power (long)

Yes we have. Glassification. Which has been in use for years.

It's not just the heights that matter. Plymouth has high tides today at 0508 and 1725, while Hunstanton, also in Norfolk has highs at 0525 and 1803, so they almost coincide, which isn't what you want. They need to be staggered by about three hours, so that when one has slack water, the other is at full flow or full ebb, and vice versa.

I just pointed out that one of the arguments was (somewhat) false.

No.

But bigger ones would. And smaller ones are a waste of money anyway.

What is the point of an overpriced 500MW intermittent solution when we need 50GW of reliable power on tap. And if there are more harryCars, a f*ck sight more than that.

Oh go and google Kirchoff as well

There certainly are sites that are around 3 hours apart. I was just comparing tide heights.

This was just one of the arguments.

ISTM that there are all sorts of issues to consider. Nuclear requires expertise bought in from abroad, whereas tidal can be done by mostly home-grown labour. Lots of issues like that. It's much more complicated than just the capital outlay.

Lies as usual.

There are so many ways, but its like a plastic bag,. Ohmigod we cant throw it away, a swan might eat it, we cant put it in landfill because it will turn back to oil in 10000 years and we cant burn it because that releases CO2.

More blatant lies. We have dozens of satisfactory ways.

How many satisfactory ways of disposing of a plastic bag, are there?

ITYM 'vitrification'

Well then how do they balance each other if they aren't connected?

Its a very very good method.

After all, that's where it comes from.

And try disposing of a bed and mattress these days...

I just have. Two. Took them to the dump.

Groan!

Surely, you are acting this stupid?

Private individuals to the local recycling centre is free, I'll give you that. But I couldn't manage such large items on my own and we had my late mother's bungalow cleared a couple of weeks ago by a chap working for our local auction house. He said that as trade waste, beds and 3-piece suites were becoming increasingly difficult to dispose of; about £50 a shot. The easiest way was to burn them and then put the springs etc in the 'metal' skip, but these days they weren't allowed to burn them, and in a few months time even the local trade waste dump wasn't going to take them. He was quite concerned and I don't doubt him; he wasn't a cowboy.

That's because you aren't intelligent and technical

There is really only one, or maybe two issues to consider.

Is a stable reliable baseload tidal power setup more expensive than nuclear? Yes, by a factor even at Hinkley prices of at leasts 3:1.

Does it have a higher or lower impact on the environment?

Yes. higher,. by a factor of about 10:1.

Nuclear requires

NO, it really isn't, especially once it's built.

The problem is it depends on your expectations. also of course, whatever you do to extract power from any so called renewable natural source, you will change the environment in extracting it. The more you extract the more the change. It could be in these cases ocean currents and silting and affect the way wildlife lives at the site, creating some new habitats and removing others.

In all these schemes though there is down time due to the ebb of the tides in this case and of course changes over the year as the moon and the sun and their positions affect the tides. You will with anything in the ocean need a lot of maintenance due to wear and tear corrosion activity of wildlife and silting up as well.

The issue with nuclear of course is dealing with some very dangerous waste, and we seem no nearer a solution on this than we were half a century ago. Realistically,I do not see fusion working in the near term, if ever. Brian

You are harry AICMFP.

they don't need to balance each other

you just need to balance it somehow.

both get connected into the grid, which they will need to do anyway in order to supply their output to some users.

The idea that any one generator is directly connected to the 150,000 houses that its can theoretically supply the leccy for, is just silly

tim