1.2 MegaWatts: World's Largest Tidal Turbine To Be Installed

i dont know but the idea of having such a contraption seems horribly flawed. 2 giant propeller blades spinning in the water? Almost sounds like the environmental assessment of such a device was done by the same ppl who assessments for big oil. Only algea in the area?

alex,

They made the point that the turbine turns slowly relative to the speed of sea creatures who travel in strong currents. Are you disagreeing with this?

Mike

Why not slap a wind turbine on top of that bad boy? Double the electricity output that way, no?

Ahh, it's refreshing stuff like this that keep me coming back to this place, thanks for this Justin.

I don't know the first thing about how fast undersea life can react but these will be 16m diameter rotors which means at 20rpm you will get a tip speed of 60km/hr (37mph) they say they are looking at developing up to 20m rotors. Since these are the max specs I dont think there would be too much of a problem, but then again I'm not a tuna fish about to be smashed on the head by a steel beam moving close to 40mph.

in a way i am, not in a NIMBY way but by the way I perceive such a device would work underwater. Putting a turbine in air is one thing, in water just seems to me like it will be a killing field. Do large water creatures venture past this area every so often? Does it spin slow enough that even getting hit at the tip wont cause harm or will this device replicate the behavior of when you try to grab a small thing in the water with your hand where it just gets pushed out of the way from the current.

Really this probably requires a lot more reading on my part, my response is just a gut reaction from looking at the device.

Agreed. Adding a wind turbine was the first thing I though of as well.

Note that the fabricationy of these huge devices is taking place at Harland and Wolff of Belfast, the legendary shipbuilder, who built Titanic. They've been out of business for years, but they have huge infrastructure and a long history of solving unique engineering problems.

It's a perfect example of using grand old industrial establlishments in new ways. How many fantastic plants around the world are mothballed, waiting for new challenges and opportunities? It's exciting to think about.

I'm a big fan of tidal power: No carbon, no nuclear waste, no toxic photovoltaic cells, and far less destructive than damming a river for hydroelectricity.

But I can see how these turbines might result in chopped-up whale meat.

I would prefer study of environmental impact compared to an assurance like "I think they can swim fast enough." Birds are pretty fast, and they get chopped up by wind turbines.

Wind turbine on top might not be a bad touch, but I truly doubt they could get another 1.2 megawatts that way. I doubt they could even add another 1% of that.

Still, because tidal turbines work only half the day (when tides are moving), complementing this with wind power is smart.

The thickness, size and shape of the blades show this device to be most powerful and the fore-runner of the free current turbines that will find their way into the ocean to eventually help transition from the fossil into the clean sustainable era.

I think that it could be used effectively in many areas where currents are strong and waters are not too deep. The density of water permits concentration of energy extraction so I see no barrier to using this double turbine system with blades at relatively short distances from each other.

adrianakau2aol.com

Good idea to add wind on top!

I just was listening to a Renewable Energy hearing today and heard that Oregon has enough potential ocean power to fully cover 100% of its energy need!

And even more amazing: Alaska has enough for 100% PLUS extra to export!

http://energy.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Hearings.Hearing&Hearing_ID=1636

My only concern is how a large number of these underwater turbines would affect tidal patterns. Some of the kinetic energy of the underwater currents is being turned into electrical energy by these turbines so doesn't that change the speed at which the underwater currents move? Maybe this would only be a small change with one turbine but what about the affect of many turbines? Hope my fears are unfounded.

Alternative energy. Well....there it is.
Those blades look spooky!

That would make a nice little seagull blender. Inclrease the feed in the water, attract more seagulls, more feed in the water, attract more fish....

Just wondering, since Newton's laws still apply, if you convert too much current into power what happens to the neccessary flow of water? Or, is this another one of those - "Oh, the ocean is so big, humans could never have an impact on it" ideas?

sly_1, that may or maynot be economically feasible. For the most part it'd make sense but in some locations the amount of wind energy is trivial. I don't know what the coasts of Ireland are like but I imagine in some locals it'll be possible.

i dunno. 20 per minute seems a bit fast. one spin per 3 seconds in the water, and with the length of the blades the tips will be going pretty dam quick. sounds a little more like a "she'll be right mate" than a proven idea.

large fish that get caught in the high currents will take the blunt of it. as long as they keep them away from known whale and shark areas they should ok i guess.

their kill rate would be nothing compared to what goes on down there. just like the wind turbines and cats thing. I strongly support wind in this matter as long as theyre placed with thought and moved if a problem is sighted. its a lot better then burning the coal and fillng the sinks up.

id like to see all these techs with their footprints, what wastes are made in building and future expectations, how many of these can be build with the same resources to build a coal or nuclear station and how its output relates. along with how long til they positively impacting the environment.

where is energy star when you need them.

so they are using the power of moving water, like a dam. except instead of powering a whole city (or 1/8th of china) like a dam, it powers a whopping 1000 homes!!!! lol

I wonder if the turbine will ever replace the energy it took to create it? Raw materials, construction of the factory, constriction of the turbine, putting the turbine in the water, and so on. I wonder if they took into account the amount of limited fossil fuels that went into the creation of this turbine? Will the power generated by this turbine be greater than the amount of energy that was used to create it? Will the turbine create enough power to power to build and power a factory to create more turbines?

^^ A sea turbine is way more efficient then a wind turbine. The reason behind this is because water is denser then air. So the throughput of a water turbine is much greater than a wind turbine.

Hi,
I posted a video of these in action if anyone is interested. Great site..thanks
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mo6Ln940xO4

Hi,
I posted a video of these in action if anyone is interested. Great site..thanks
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mo6Ln940xO4

sly_1
Maybe they're afraid it'd fly away :)

That's exactly what I thought sly!
Very refreshing article, very interesting tech, i want more like this. I hope Fraser sees this and makes an article for the Energy Blog, than we'd hear some professionals' opinion.

i did some of the environmental assessment of this device (a smaller scale prototype anyway) and in terms of impact on marine wildlife it is one of the best i have evaluated so far.

the blades themselves rotate at a very low rate, they could not possibly kill anything. the noise output by the device is also very low.

the largest environmental impact of all offshore energy devices is the noise generated during construction, particularly piling operations. these can have impact ranges in the tens of kilometers, and are fatal at short range.

Pictured above is a 16m (diameter?) rotor. If it spins at 20 rpm, that means the rotor tips are going 20*2*8*pi meters/minute, or about 60 km/h. Yeah, some fish swim that fast...but not many. And those that do need to in order to hunt other fish.

Hey guys,

This Tidal Power Station is not off the coast. It is in Strangford Lough which is connected to the sea by only a narrow natural waterway that generates an incredibly powerful tidal current.

The Lough is a conservation area and its abundant wildlife recognised internationally for its importance.

Its also very pretty.

Have a look: http://www.strangfordlough.org/

Temple

and they call 10-20 revolutions per minute a SLOW speed?
please have a look at the first picture. and tell me if each blade is not about 10 metres long. now imagine the whole rotor doing a complete revolution every 6-3 seconds.
now imagine some animal the size of a sea-lion trying to pass through that, dodging the blades. what do you see? i see a slaughter.

Mmmm.. chopped seafood, I can't wait!

Prob not much point putting a wind turbine on there, water is so much denser than air that the power it can produce is many times greater.

Is it jsut me, or does putting something carrying a large electric current in seawater just seem like a bad idea?

This thing isnt moving. I am sure the animals are smart enough to stay away from it. I mean if this really bothers you, how about all the boats, submarines, oil rigs and whatever else floating around our oceans? I really doubt that anything will be harmed by this particular device.

I swear man, you have people out there busting their ass to find an alternative means of power and when they have something, something good, there are always people there to try and bring it down. Sad really.

I am missing a price/performance comparison to;
wind turbine, oil fed powerplant, coal fed powerplant, solar panels. Include installation which probably has a pretty hefty price. Don't forget it also needs maintenance. Things tend to grow underwater.

Wow how are we going to get away from coal or nuclear if everyone complains about things they don't understand? Worried about fish, what about a net around it? I'd think they would be able to hear the blades and avoid them.

I'm not certain that this kind of prop generates the same kind of vortex that an air prop does, which would suck poor animals into it. In fact, the momentum of the blade moving through the water may generate a small repulsive force, driving animals away from it, as water is incompressible.

This seems like a pretty obvious way of getting cheap and clean power for it to be a new technology.

Also, there does seem to be a few problem with it but I think they could easily be fixed. Maybe a cage around the blades to keep ocean life out of it, but on a scale that large it may not be possible.

I think just the idea that people are finding new ways of clean and cheap power every day is very encouraging.

Interesting to see how this turns out. Poor lil fishies.

is it too much of a leap of logic to consider putting a form of mesh around the blades to prevent sea creatures from becoming sushi?

I'm with the other guy on this though...conservation of energy: would enough of these cause a major effect on tidal patterns and/or weather?

Fish don't retardedly run into boats and submarines... They see/hear a big object moving quickly and avoid it.

heheh, start worrying about what will happen to the moon if you consider is the cause of tides....

will slowing the tides also slow the speed of the moon.....then...where will it fall? :D

i would sharpen those blades, and then feed the poor with the dead fish. or sell the resulting chopped food to mcdonals....

I think there is an easy way to avoid the chopped fish idea. Put a metal fencing/grating around the blades. Water can still flow through, but fish can't. Kind of like the idea of a fan, so you don't cut your hand off.

Why stop with adding just a wind turbine to the top? Add some solar panels! Maybe a mini nuclear reactor too!

What about some sort of LOW frequency device that sends out harmless pulses of sound to warn creatures away? Or would that effect whales, etc.?
The net was a good idea as well.
As to disruption of the current; if aligned properly, couldn't they flow WITH the current, as opposed to AGAINST it? Might it not only AID the present current system, or have no impact at all, rather than harm it?

how about a river turbine?

You could use underwater radar (fish finder) which would sense animals approaching and temporarily stop the rotor if a whale was approaching.

I'm thinking that wind turine on top is a bad idea since sea birds will be wanting to land on it and probably nest on it...

Where do you think this energy is coming from? (obviously systems like these are peanuts, but drawing energy by slowing down the moon strikes me as a bit funny)

I e-mailed them about the possibility of putting a wind-turbine on top a while back.

They replied that they have a patent for such an idea. However, for two reasons they will not be actually doing it any time soon.

First, they think (rightly) that it will make it much harder to get permissions - all the nimbys around, you see.

Second, sites that tend to have the greatest tidal streams tend to be in tight estuaries, where the wind potential is not that great.

Will.

To those who are concerned about chopped up whales, have you considered that they might put a cage around these bad boys.... you know.... kinda like what you get in a window fan like. Not rocket science, and it would require a tad of maintenance, but not much really.

Sometimes I get the impression that some people want to see problems in everything. Others see challenges. This is potentially wonderful, and sure beats a coal plant.

Peace.

LOL WHAT HAPPENS IF YOU TRY TO GO SWIMMING HAHAHAHAHAHA

I´ll try to answer some of your questions, feel free to disagree, as my answers will be made out of my viewpoint:
1- animals being hitten: Thats a nono, any big moving object in wa