All Wet
Europe backing 'limitless' energy project in France
This again...
Look, we figured out centuries ago that tides and waves contain enormous energy; it's not a revelation. If this could have been done in a cost-effective manner, it would have been. The problem is not one of desire, but of mathematics. The ocean is the harshest operating environment for machinery this side of outer space. Corrosion and kinetic force are extremely hard on equipment. When the turbines break down -- and they will, quite frequently -- what would otherwise be relatively simple maintenance work becomes a major undertaking, since much of the equipment is either partially or wholly submerged.
These four turbines generating a measly 5.6 megawatts, (which figure I have no doubt is the nameplate capacity rather than the average net capacity), will almost certainly cost more to maintain than a coal- or gas-fired plant generating a hundred times that much. That 5.6 MW -- more likely in the 2 to 3 MW average output range -- is barely enough to sustain a small town, even before accounting for transmission loss. Even more so than wind turbines, the cost-to-return ratio simply isn't there. If it were, people would be building tidal generator stations as fast as they could machine the parts.
Tidal generators are a hippie pipe dream. Until we have MUCH more advanced and durable materials, that is what it shall remain. But the hippies and enviro-nazis never see any of this, let alone understand it; they just hear "clean" or "renewable," whereupon they categorically declare it to be better and imperiously demand that We Do This Thing Now. That's because engineering and maintenance are the concerns of we filthy Morlocks grubbing away in our caves of iron, while the artsy Eloi dance in the glorious sunshine, thinking Deep Thoughts and talking about unicorns and free love... Somebody fire up the grill; the herd needs culling.
The European Commission said it was moving in line behind a French plan to build a pilot project that would help convert power from tides into electricity.
French energy company ENGIE plans to build a tidal energy project on the western coast of the Cotentin peninsula in the English Channel. Characterizing the pilot project as having a "limitless" energy potential, the French company said it aims to install four tidal turbines with a total generating capacity of 5.6 megawatts.
This again...
Look, we figured out centuries ago that tides and waves contain enormous energy; it's not a revelation. If this could have been done in a cost-effective manner, it would have been. The problem is not one of desire, but of mathematics. The ocean is the harshest operating environment for machinery this side of outer space. Corrosion and kinetic force are extremely hard on equipment. When the turbines break down -- and they will, quite frequently -- what would otherwise be relatively simple maintenance work becomes a major undertaking, since much of the equipment is either partially or wholly submerged.
These four turbines generating a measly 5.6 megawatts, (which figure I have no doubt is the nameplate capacity rather than the average net capacity), will almost certainly cost more to maintain than a coal- or gas-fired plant generating a hundred times that much. That 5.6 MW -- more likely in the 2 to 3 MW average output range -- is barely enough to sustain a small town, even before accounting for transmission loss. Even more so than wind turbines, the cost-to-return ratio simply isn't there. If it were, people would be building tidal generator stations as fast as they could machine the parts.
Tidal generators are a hippie pipe dream. Until we have MUCH more advanced and durable materials, that is what it shall remain. But the hippies and enviro-nazis never see any of this, let alone understand it; they just hear "clean" or "renewable," whereupon they categorically declare it to be better and imperiously demand that We Do This Thing Now. That's because engineering and maintenance are the concerns of we filthy Morlocks grubbing away in our caves of iron, while the artsy Eloi dance in the glorious sunshine, thinking Deep Thoughts and talking about unicorns and free love... Somebody fire up the grill; the herd needs culling.
posted by Jar(egg)head at 13:22
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