I wonder how much a generator costs these days…
We’re an island nation, surrounded by tidal seas and fairly consistent waves. Complete mystery why we haven’t utilised those sources.
1 Like
It’s not so simple.The Victorians and later have been considering that over a century with the Severn Bore without success. Then there was the Islay Tidal Project. That was just 500 kW. For context Drax Power station is 4,000 MW
Thanks. I recall those snake type things shown on Tomorrow’s World years ago.
It’s a pity we haven’t found a way just yet. Hopefully the key word is “yet”.
Actually, we have found ways particularly with Hydro. Norway is 95% hydro. And then there is Itaipu which is huge and the Three Gorges in China is even bigger. I’ve done a few small ones. One is in a paper mill in Scotland, originally about 1900. The last one I did was an electrical conversion at 500kW. The water turbine drives an electric motor
Thanks again. Do you recall any other experiments in the UK? I recall one which involved building a cuboid which was placed slightly offshore. Tide came in, it filled up. Tide went down, it emptied. Both directions naturally had potential for turning a turbine. Think the main difficulty was how to manufacture it so it didn’t break apart after a few short years.
I suppose my life has been one experiment after another - but then I is/was an electrical engineer. Mostly in the industrial field.of power electronics with power ratings from about 30 kW to 10,000 kW and voltages up to 11 kV. Some interesting projects, experiments if you like. Energy saving flywheels was one. The flywheels in a huge cast iron frame at the experimental stage. This was in case they blew up. And some did!
Another project was the Orient Express. This was for aircon but the units had to be slung underneath the carriages. These were cast aluminium boxes with the semiconductors encased in epoxy, another first for us.
I digress…
3 Likes
Please feel free to digress…I do find this interesting, despite not understanding much of it 
1 Like
Well, thank you, PK! It has been a roller coaster of a ride at times. Sometimes interesting, sometimes pleasant, and some not so nice. I was on an icebreaker in dry doc in Canada at -20C. Sahara desert was +40C. And the gold mines in SA had snakes…
1 Like
Not too bad for a low kW generator, but consider noise and running costs. Also, the output will need to regulated and filtered to prevent electrical spikes that could damage electronic equipment.
2 Likes
Right so its not something I could shove in the spare room living above an older person then…sigh there’s always a catch. 
Depends if you want to die of carbon monoxide poisoning or not. 
1 Like
Oh I have a detector…I’m not silly!
To quote the words of a well known adventurer…“I hate snakes”
My personal opinion is that the only reliable source of electricity in the long term, until nuclear fusion is developed, is nuclear fission.
Fossil fuels will run out and/or become too expensive, wind and tidal are already insufficient and wind is unreliable.
The only problem is the number of objections to fission, at least in the UK. Obviously, the French don’t worry about that or perhaps their people have more common sense than ours!
Certainly, if and when Boris’s electric cars become more popular (if people do keep falling for them!) there are going to be some serious supply problems.
Merry Christmas everyone!
Actually, I overdid it last night when we went out to our friends and became more drunk than Marge ever remembers me before. Nevertheless, I was not 
2 Likes
Plenty of coal waiting to be mined JB…
Happy Christmas to Marge and your good self by the way…
Hi
The problem with nuclear is that we are not paying the actual costs of it.
We have huge bills to pay in future for the radioactive waste we are storing.
One day we will have the “Solex Agitator”.
1 Like
We have a little house we rent out. We had tenants in there for 12 years and they left so we do holiday lets from last April when the Govt said we could. There is no gas in the village and there is not room for oil tank so our only option was electric. We had an Energy Performance advisor in to do the EPC and she recommended high heat retention storage heaters. These seem effective although they were expensive and we now wait until April to work out what they are costing to run over 12 months. They have improved the EPC anyway.
1 Like
I look forward to hearing the results in April Flowerpower…
1 Like