Where, exactly? You'd need locations with comparable generating capacity; no good balancing a 5GW scheme in one place with a 500MW scheme in another. And why eight hours? You'd want them offset so that the slack tides at full- and low-tides corresponded with the peak flow at half tide, ebb or flow, at the other site. There was talk of Morecambe Bay being used in conjunction with Swansea, or at least something in the Severn Estuary, but they're six hours apart, so the slack tide at one corresponds to the slack tide at the other. Bugger all use, in fact.
Why can't you Brexiteers be more respectful? Or would you prefer 'Brexsh1teers'?
Because that's just how involved the EU is with our every existence.
Do we have any power cables coming from any countries that aren't in the EU OOI?
It's *massive* difference that has been explain so many times here that I really think you must be trolling?
See above. *completely* different situation.
See above.
Why does it bother you that the near 50% didn't agree with the outcome and the many who don't respect it for the scam it was. Do you &really* thing that 'the people' want this ... or the government or the PM or the rest of Europe?
Only 1/3rd of the electorate voted *for* it and have every right to see if a real vote could be given to the people (rather than a bastardised non-binding poll), once we know what the final seal might be.
Except we can't show our hand because it's already dangerously weak (apparently) to we have to drag it out by playing silly games.
And you think we should just carry on with it because we tossed a coin on one day a couple of years ago?
You would have thought that over that same time period the Leavers would have actually come up with some real tangible / factual arguments for their case but of course they can't ... because they can't predict that we won't just be swapping our cow for some magic beans. ;-(
Surely we don't need to import anything by ship (it can all be flown into Heathrow with its third runway) so cannot the barriers be positioned anywhere with a deep water port?
Cool (albeit it still hardly makes us 'self sufficient' though etc). ;-(
Do you think there will ever be a situation where we could run on such interconnects alone (assuming the supplier country could afford to feed 100% etc)?
Or will that be when we are only allowed 1 x 5w LED light per room and can only run heavy loads when the sun is shining or the wind blowing (in the UK)?
In fact I spoke to a fellow graduate of my generation at a college engineering reunion. He worked for the CEGB at the time of Thatcher...and Sizewell 'B'.
Sizewell 'B' was looking to be a reasonable success and Thatcher was all set to smash coal on account of the radicalisation of the NUM, and nuclear looked a good option, as it had to de Gaulle when faced with OPEC and Arab control of oil and gas.
What then happened were two independent events that took nuclear power off the agenda.
The first was spiralling interst rates
Nuclear power is utterly dependent on high capital/low running cost models. At 5% cost of capital Sizewell was feasible. At 10% it was utterly uneconomic.
Even so political constraints might have led to its being subsidised except that...
...North Sea Gas came along and production was mighty in the 80s and 90s....
...And CCGT power stations were cheap to build.
So the CEGB abandoned nuclear in favour of gas. And arguably given the availability of cheap gas, it was right to do so.
That gas is now running out, and we import gas from Qatar, Norway and the Middle east, and latterly it looks like the USA as well.
So nuclear is back on the agenda again.
The key to a nuclear renaissance is less 'people to design them' than a sensible reappraisal of nuclear safety, in the light of 21st century better understaning of the (lack of) dangers of radiation, and possible ways to mass produce reactors (SMRs) that could be type approved and installed in huge numbers..
A great many years ago, I attended a lecture where air/sea freight was the topic. During the War in the Pacific a lot of freight was being shipped to Australia from the USA. Someone thought aircraft would be better. When the sums were done, twice the number of ships were needed to service the aircraft as were currently in use. I know aircraft have got longer range, now, and bigger capacities, but ships have got vastly bigger, too.
because? The supply depends on the rate the lagoon fills and empties. You don't have to wait until high tide before allowing the lagoon to flow into the sea. and the flow doesn't have to stop at low tide
I think (I certainly hope) he wasn't being serious.
An estuary or deep water port for a tidal energy scheme is most suited when it's long and narrow and there's a big tidal range.
I've posted this before, but it's worth repeating (Gibrat was one of the engineers who designed the barrage at La Rance):
The Gibrat ratio, k, is a quick and dirty way of assessing the viability of a particular tidal barrage scheme. It is calculated from the equation k = l/E, where l is the length of the barrage in metres, and E is an estimate of the power available. E is calculated from E = 1.4 x R^2 x A where R is the mean tidal range in metres, and A is the impounded area in km^2 . The lower the better; good tidal barriers achieve figures less then 1.
So you can do your own estimates as to whether a particular location will be of any use as a tidal barrage.
For La Rance, the barrage length is 750 metres, the mean tidal range
8.2 metres, the area 22 km^2, which gives a Gibrat Ratio k of
750/(1.4*8.2*8.2*22) = 0.36.
For the Swansea Lagoon, the length is 9650 metres, mean tidal range
8.5 metres, area 11.5 km^2 so k = 9650/(1.4*8.5*8.5*11.5) = 8.3 , which is poor.
There was a Mersey scheme mooted a while back, which I think actually had a reasonable Gibrat figure, but was dropped on grounds of cost IIRC. Various links here
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