World's first tidal energy farm to be built off Islay, Scotland

Moon power... sounds good!!!

+^d ! It does. Good for the Scotts.

+^d !

arrr!!!

If only they all knew what an Asshole you are mate!!!

'spose so

i thought you would be stoked about this!

hahaha No. It's a top down world => plus, I have accepted the humans need to move along at plodding speed so they can drain every last drop of bragging rights for each baby step while "working real hard" (ala George W. Bush).

Perhaps you heard the "Great Thinker" Michio Kaku a few nights ago with George Noory? Oh yeah! He was layering on the icing all over the place, says we'll have space travel and be making the leap to Type-1 civilization before 100 more years goes by.

He thinks we're going to reach Ludicrous Speed in 100 years! hahaha Yeah, sure. He ignores the fact humans are in love with CREAKING SPEED.

No, I'm just watching the parade man. It's like watching the Joker coming down Gotham City Boulevard with floats and spraying the people with purple stuff named YOU CANT HAVE IT.

We in the US of A will be going to 100% Crude Oil soon. We have gobs of it and all our nuclear reactors have gotten OLD. You'll see a little village or island here and there doing something like this tidal farm but such is not to happen in the US. Too many people want Green => they have to be told No. It's cathartic, good for the cleansing of the peon's soul.

hahahahaha !

Better late than never .

Rep. Joe Barton would have to apologize to them.

absolutely!!! we should be doing this also

I dont think anyone said it was going to 'solve' the energy needs of the future, especially since humans on the whole are so gluttonous and can never see their part in all of this by conserving. But it is surely better than coal and oil...and nuclear.

"The project is the first so called tidal array scheme to be approved by Marine Scotland, the directorate of Scottish Government responsible for the management of Scotland's seas."

And it's the first to be built and approved by the Scottish government. That is what the title relays for me. Don't know what the author intended.

I think Japan has recently demonstrated why there aren't very many of these stations. The ocean's limitless energy tends to break stuff.

That being said - a broken tidal energy plant would be expensive, but not a man made disaster.

Which is why I addressed that in my first comment.

Sorry. Please disregard my blatant inability to actually read complete posts today. :)

No problem. You made a good point.

Exactly , no ecosystem or person or animal needed to die or get sick . No 1000 year storage for super toxic waste . Powers 5000 homes . All part of the Energy Mosaic of the sustainable future . This is a life affirming energy source , so far as is known .

Yes, water is life and we are surrounded by its energy that could be used for good. ;-)

"especially since humans on the whole are so gluttonous and can never see their part in all of this by conserving"

I totally agree. For example, I often shake my head when I see people, especially here in the US, switch on every light in the houses, instead of only us the light in the room they are in.

"But it is surely better than coal and oil...and nuclear."

You are preaching to the Choir here.

I especially like the size 10MW or energy for 500 households. Projects like these can help to change the mindset of people, because they see it is possible to supply whole communities with renewable energy without relaying on fossil fuel or nuclear energy.

"I dont think anyone said it was going to 'solve' the energy needs of the future"

I might have over interpreted you "wave of the future" in your first post a bit.

The other part of the problem , is a lack of imagination . The Energy Mosaic concept is different , in a pleasant way (everyone likes clean air and water , good soil ) , but many find it difficult to visualize , and are fearful of adapting . The end times ? THAT is easy to visualize . And it is taught to the young . A culture of war , is what we have here .

I agree. Giving communities the ability and capacity to become part of it inspires awareness, cooperation, and innovation. And no problem, "wave of the future" was meant to be a small wave... for now. I do believe with a concerted aggressive effort on the part of mankind however, that the sun, wind and water could work for us to supply our needs as we work in harmony with them with no problem regarding capacity. It is of course as you stated preaching to the choir here. It is the congregation we need to convince of this... and soon.

So true. It is far easier to envision not being able to do something than actually having to do it. The classic mindset of a denier.The falsehood of it though is when you realize and compare the results of both mindsets.

One thing to note - wind power is a very green power method, but it can go wrong for the environment, too. Wind turbines on the wrong hills whack migrating birds and bats out of the sky. Sea power will likely have a very similar issue with migrating marine life.

I've seen smaller turbines that don't do that. But as with anything or any power source, common sense should prevail, as in don't build nuclear power plants on fault lines or huge hydropower dams in a country suffering from a severe drought.

"However, the energy of the oceans is limitless..."

I know you probably didn't mean this literally, but in case you did, keep in mind that people used to have the same idea about oil.

Tidal energy is created by gravitational effects from the moon, which, although large, is measurable.

We can't let cool new technologies maintain our old bad habits. Don't you agree?

"...and I actually do not understand why this source has been so limited, except of course for the stranglehold the fossil fuel lobby has on our government."

Other than the usual suspects, it's probably just been a lack of investor interest and skepticism from governments and others about its effectiveness and its danger towards the ecosystem.

Unfortunately, even "green-minded" individuals often refuse to put up wind farms or other renewable energy systems for localized reasons (that are usually dumb, "it spoils my view" etc.).

Also, I'd imagine finding the engineering talent to do something like this has been remarkably difficult. I don't know much about it, but building underwater power systems is something I would imagine most people don't have on their resume.

There's probably less than a hundred people that even know how to do this.

I sure don't turn on every light in the house. My electric bill looks like the national debt, for my budget.

Yes ! There is energy all around us ! It falls in mass from the sun every day and rolls with the tides and winds . What works in HARMONY , survives . We are taking , what is not freely available and throwing away energy in mass . Even bio fuels could fill what tiny gap is left . If these corporate entities and the ruling class did not have a death grip on us , we would have been free of them by now .

On a small scale ( would that humanity was so humble ) it works fine . One home could have some jellyfish turbines and solar panels , backup power storage . There is a lot to be said for power efficiency , walking gently on the earth .

It's the trickle current. Years ago when the electric companies were established coal and crude oil were PENNIES a gallon, so they fixed it for their equipment to shove more voltage through your electric meter than you need.

So when the circuit box breakers are on every device in your house is getting an excessive trickle of current. Take a word from Daredevil => you aren't the bad guy.

With just a little moisture in your air there's a small electric current jumping thru the air from one side of every plug hole to the other. Through the air! hahahaha

I found out in Virginia all power companies appear to be doing this. Tested my box voltage and it slammed the meter past 250 volts. Nowadays I throw every breaker off not being used, to the stove, dryer,washer, dishwasher motor, kitchen divider outlets, TV's, blender and hot water heater.

I even found out the blasted heatpump is a real bad offender!

This is why I am also a proponent of biomimicry. The answers have always been in nature.

How ironic though that people will say they are skeptical of a wind farm or a tidal energy farm because of danger towards the ecosystem while they support the blowing up of mountains and the desecration of indigenous lands for coal and oil.

And, the picture above is not an energy "farm", which is an operative point in your post's title.

The article's title specifies "farm". The picture above does not seem to portray a "farm".

Have you tried it with LED bulbs? You can replace a 60 Watt traditional bulb with a 6 Watt LED. They are still more expensive but also last much longer. Maybe one way of cutting down on you energy bill.

Thanks. I only have one bulb left. I will try the LED bulb next.

I apologize for not being more precise. I was trying to validate your post by pointing out to
haberzet that you were referring to a power farm, and his picture was on a single ?something? While your pic only has one instrument shown, your article title implies that it will be a mass of them. As you may have recognized, I'm pro any known power other than nuclear and fossil.

p.s. with sufficient anchoring there shouldn't be much of a problem. I notice in the link you gave me, the instrument features a propeller drive, like a wind turbine, which should be very good for continuos directional streams. I'm wondering if they have employed somewhere flap drivers, placed parallel to the shore, which the waves coming in and out would continuously move the flap back and forth?

Understand. Thanks.

Yes ! IF we survive , THAT will be how .

it's just limited because they haven't figured out a way to profit from it yet. that or the oil/coal ppl are lobbying against it.

Pulling water up out of the ocean to harvest energy out of it sounds like a great plan. Here's another good plan. Lets build a ferris wheel type object on dry land. We'll put weights on it at the bottom, spin them to the highest point and drop it on a mechanical crank that turns a turbine and generates energy!!

Why haven't we seen this in a power plant before? Because the energy released by the fall was the same energy required to lift the darn thing up there in the first place, plus all the losses due to friction of various types.

Potential energy can be used to store energy, like pumping water up hill with excess electricity generated by a solar energy plant during the day, and spinning turbines down hill to make electricity during the night.

But the water isn't going to flow up the hill, or be pulled up out of the ocean, and create a net gain in energy.

Deep in the ocean that water is more than water => it's a semi-solid. Brought up to a single atmosphere of pressure it would instantly undergo a "state change" when released.

A state change your rock would not experience. State changes that happen in an instant of time are a tremendous amount of horsepower. As a general rule there's no power on earth that can stop a state change once it has commenced.

You play with the rocks sonny. Oh, and enjoy paying for Japan to fix their mess too.

hahahahaha

If you think about the total Mass of this planet's ocean water, combined with the fact the equator is spinning at 1,000 miles per hour, you would realize the ENERGY required to hold that water down on the planet.

Energy that can be harnessed. It's in the deep ocean water. Water is the energy storage medium.

We just send down the containers and bring em back up, one long continuous loop.

When it hits ya be sure you're sitting down. haha

I grew up back in the 1950's. That was the time we got Hula Hoops, Duncan Yo-Yo experts coming through town giving exhibitions, and then there was the Slinky. We had lots of such toys then, made for the first time. The Frisbee is also a great example. Those tops you wrapped a throw-string around, they were great.

I grew up watching round things made to do wondrous things. So now I'm 59 and I've shown how to do a wondrous thing also.

Ocean Energy is there, waiting. So are my other engines that do some amazing looping back tricks no other engines on earth do. But one trick I can't do is fight discrimination against an old guy washed up and on disability, a poor credit risk.

So you'll have to swallow whatever radioactive swill spills off the big boy's table. Jesus will be here soon and they'll be gone. Something to look forward to because so will the Pope, and all false religion.

Water at the bottom of the ocean is not along the phase diagram line between solid and liquid. Temperatures at the bottom of the ocean are more than 273 K, which is the maximum temperature that solid and liquid will exist in equilibrium until you get to pressures several orders of magnitude above the pressures that exist at the bottom of the ocean. Therefore, there is no phase change when bringing water to the surface.

You have to spin the hula hoop, the yo-yo, and the frisbee with outside energy. You have to carry the slinky to the top of the stairs. You have to ADD energy to water to get it higher than it currently is.

The Laws of Physics is the source, where the energy is added. hahaha You're fun. I post then you come right back, like a frisbee.

You remind me of the 1950's.

Okay. I'm going to humor you. Let's say you're right, no state change. But you still have 8 tons per square inch of pressure at 30,000 feet => and that's ENERGY on the hoof in anybody's book. Therefore, in place of water compression lower down some big springs to be pressed and float them back up.

Energy of an Entire Planet is a terrible thing to waste.

You did a great job of cherry-picking from the Wikipedia article => http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Properties_of_water telling me facts about water in supercritical spots near volcanic ocean bottom plumes.

I guess next you'll quote me how springs can't work either. However, the fact remains is the ENERGY exists in ABUNDANCE; so if men want to play around at solving the energy crisis and letting the peoples of the earth die then keep on splashing around up on the surface playing with the tides and letting people die.

Simple. In fact, it's as simple as one of Nikolai Tesla's personal flying craft no one has figured out how it worked but apparently me => he used a lightning drive.

But as long as you idiots keep the people fooled away from Ocean Energy they'll never ever get a personal spacecraft Tesla and I know they should already have. And their home should be airborne-capable so whenever one of these earthquakes happens the home levitates up off the ground til the quake is over.

You're jamming up Time.

Let's say that it is possible to create a compressible object that would be able to store the compression energy, and that it would be capable of withstanding enough compression/ expansion cycles to be cost effective.

That being granted, your object will either be heavier or lighter than water. If it's heavier, you can just let it sink. But how do you get it back? You expend energy to lift it. Plus whatever energy is required to overcome the drag effect of the water, which is significant.

If your object is lighter than water, you have to expend energy to get it to sink, possibly by just attaching weights to it. But then you are right back at the heavier than water version. You have to haul the whole thing back up, and overcome drag.

As for the lightning drive, let's just say through equal measures of sheer luck and complete lunacy, I did manage to coax lighting to strike my house. How would I then store all that energy until I could use it? I'd have to fill the place with batteries, and hope they stayed charged and didn't blow up my house.

Just because energy exists, does not mean we can extract useful work out of it. Please keep looking for answers - but I suggest you look someplace else.

Your lack of vision is showing badly.

You're trying to dig your way through these energies using your conscious mind to understand realities best beheld by the more powerful subconscious powerhouse mind that never sleeps. And which also never gives up.

Like me.

If you keep reasoning out in your mind how all my ideas are a half empty cup then you have told your mind what parameters it has to observe, which then bars & blocks your mind from accepting I am right.

You are relegating yourself to the back of the bus. Exponential power is not for you to understand at this time.

I suggest you close off your wasting time insulting me. The walls of your box need plastering.

If you feel that I am insulting you, I apologize, as that is not my intention.

I am merely pointing out the laws of physics that you have chosen to overlook. If you have new laws of physics, I'd sure like to see your proofs. If belief is required prior to proof, that's religion, not science.

Insults? I just don't like you nor do I care for your attitude. Many of your questions were answered in the thread => http://current.com/technology/92858210_ocean-energy-fishing-8-tons-per-square-in...

Read them. I have other things to do than jump through hoops for a person trying to insult me publicly and tie up my time. Go find something to do. Take your scummy bag of religious side comments with ya.

Actually, I read that thread before I replied to you on this one. I didn't reply to any of your comments there because the thread is 3 months old.

I don't see that you posted any additional facts in that thread that we didn't debate on this one.

Again, I do not intend these remarks to be insulting, I am only pointing out the lack of support for your arguments. There is a terrible lack of scientific education in the world, and some poor soul may be duped into believing we could solve all the worlds problems so easily, if only the "insert boogey man here" would allow us to.

Good for you.

You know, you really are sort of funny. You throw out the word "easy" as if easy is a Bad Thing. hahaha

EASY MY FRIEND IS EFFICIENCY. So when you foul mouth EASY you are also foul mouthing EFFICIENCY. I see you man. I see right through you.

You are the enemy of all mankind. You're the dupester. You are also the dumpster filled with trash we need to be free of, and will soon. Yours is a limited run.

You will win for a while yet.

If your job is to dispatch me, you won't. I suggest you withdraw. I only get stronger when challenged. Leave me be would work better for you.

You've been warned.