1.2 MW?
Dude thats just not enough to compete. Coal powerplanst usually put out 200+MW?

Well - everything needs a starting point, right? :)
Small steps will more than likely finish the race in better shape than the dashing sprinters.
Other companies and countries, like my US, will look at this and judge the success of it and hopefully be swayed into using it to offset some of the fossil fuel consumption.

What's the comparative cost/MW to build one of these versus the cost/MW for a coal powerplant. Coal powerplants aren't cheap, so maybe if these aren't expensive (although they do look expensive) maybe it'd be worth it.

hooray! another first for british industry. built at the harland and wolff shipyards.
(skips off whistling "soon we will be shipbuilding")

Dude thats just not enough to compete. Coal powerplanst usually put out 200+MW?

The largest wind turbine puts out about 7MW. The key is to use an array of them. The good part about this is you can take them individually down for service without seriously affecting power generation.

150KW ??? That's not enough power! That thing must have cost a couple million to sink down! If it's hooked up to the power grid why not throw a few wind turbines on it as well. As proposed this is not a feasable solution.

Why?

1. Only 150 KW - not enough power
2. Expensive - Floating this thing out into the ocean and bolting it to the seabed cannot be cheap.
3. Won't last long - the ocean water will eat this thing up in 75 years.
4. In the long run it will be expensive to maintain.

Where's the positive to all of these negatives?

If you put enough of these things in the ocean, do you think you could actually nullify a tsunami? Or would the tsunami most likely break all of the tidal generators.

Maybe they could be marketed as tsunami barricades and as a side benefit provide energy in the meantime.

Just a thought...

Renewable power is always going to come in small units multiplied - thus making it far more reliable that big coal-fired monsters of 500 MW that, when they break down, take out 500 MW at once!

Tsunamis are so rare that installing these as a tsunami guard would make no sense. Plus, a tsunami is mostly a "surface" phenomenon, and these run in the deeper underwater currents - though at least that means a tsunami shouldn't destroy them. Still, as they extract energy out of the moving water, they should reduce the energy level in any tsunami that passes by.

It's good to see new tidal power plants joining the ones that were commissioned 25 years ago in Canada and France.

The nice thing about tidal power is that it is exactly the same, day after day. This makes it easier to integrate into the grid than wind or solar.

Mr. Danz obviously didn't finish reading the article. It will produce a much more respectable 1.2MW.

These would have NO net effect on the MASSIVE energies that are present in tsunami's.

This tech could be used in the Atlantic Gulf Stream current, and other continuous ocean currents. There's a lot of power on the continental shelf, and they'd be out of sight.

Brent and echoclerk -

First of all 1.2MW when they allow it to run at full speed, not 150KW.

Icelander is right. Turbines and solar panels need to be installed in large groups to make a lot of power. Now lets think about coal. Yes you have one plant thats producing power, but the fuel isn't sourced at that plant, it comes from a 100 acre hole in the ground. I don't know if that 100 acres of coal and 100 acres of wind or tidal turbines would produce equivalent power. What I do know is that 100 acres of wind farm can also do double duty as grassland for livestock. You have the 100 acres minus the combined square footage of the tower bases and access roads that is still useful land. When you dig up 100 acres of coal you have a giant barren hole where nothing will grow.

Everything has a maintenance cost. Is the maintenance cost for tidal with no fuel cost higher then the maintenance cost with fuel cost for a coal plant? I doubt it but we'll see in the future. Coal plants are more expensive to build than wind farms and I would have to assume the same thing of tidal farms. I think the tidal equipment is probably designed for salt water.

The tidal power plants put in 25 years ago haven't been repeated because they are environmentally destructive. They reduce the flow in inlets and allow sediment to accumulate. Also, they reduce the tidal range of inlets so the ecosystem undergoes massive changes.

Also, yes, it's hard to believe this thing generates enough to be worth it. I was expecting more than 1.2 MW. Also, don't forget, the tide does not always flow, so 1.2peak MW averaged over a day should be roughly half that.

Brent Danz, how about you read the article. It says in the first stage they're constraining to 150 and will eventually be brought up to 1.2 MW.

If you can't bother reading a dozen lines, don't bother commenting.

Unfortunately, the ERoI (energy returned over energy invested) is very low.