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fivemackhttp://www.tridentenergy.co.uk/index.php
I don't quite understand how what these people are trying to do makes any kind of sense at all; their Web site looks like the write-up of a good A-level design technology project, and says in pieces dated February that they're about to start the test that clearly just failed to start in mid-September. The design seems to have a single guidance bearing taking all the sideways force of North Sea waves, held up on a remarkably flimsy-looking tower, and their prototype is made of eighty tons of steel and using four quite complicated linear generators to generate twenty measly kilowatts. I admit that I was slightly surprised that any marine engineers were involved in the endeavour at all.
What have I missed?
I'm sure it's unfair to compare the cost of tidal equipment to that of wind or solar; there's been, what, three orders of magnitude more money available for optimising wind and solar. But I can't help feeling there's a conclusion to draw from the fact that almost every story I read about wave power involves a wave-power demonstration, set up by a small company and producing less power than the smallest wind turbine Vestas will deign to sell, being destroyed by the wrath of Poseidon.
I don't quite understand how what these people are trying to do makes any kind of sense at all; their Web site looks like the write-up of a good A-level design technology project, and says in pieces dated February that they're about to start the test that clearly just failed to start in mid-September. The design seems to have a single guidance bearing taking all the sideways force of North Sea waves, held up on a remarkably flimsy-looking tower, and their prototype is made of eighty tons of steel and using four quite complicated linear generators to generate twenty measly kilowatts. I admit that I was slightly surprised that any marine engineers were involved in the endeavour at all.
What have I missed?
I'm sure it's unfair to compare the cost of tidal equipment to that of wind or solar; there's been, what, three orders of magnitude more money available for optimising wind and solar. But I can't help feeling there's a conclusion to draw from the fact that almost every story I read about wave power involves a wave-power demonstration, set up by a small company and producing less power than the smallest wind turbine Vestas will deign to sell, being destroyed by the wrath of Poseidon.
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Date: 2009-09-22 01:55 pm (UTC)National Grid are talking (http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200809/cmselect/cmenergy/memo/futurenet/ucm02002.htm) about connecting up 32GW of wind turbines using cabling which will cost them up to five billion pounds (the wholesale price of 32GW * nine weeks, so even with a pessimistic load factor less than the price of the electricity the turbines would produce in a year) over the next fifteen years.
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Date: 2009-09-22 02:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-22 09:45 pm (UTC)Will continue debating the merits of venture capitalism in the other thread.
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Date: 2009-09-23 09:03 am (UTC)