wave energy

[david_carnell]

This idea of storing energy produced at non-peak times....

Now I'm no scientist (far from it in fact) but do we not have giant super-batteries to store this stuff in till we need it?

[louisiana]

If you regard a pump (to pump water uphill until you need the energy) as a giant super-battery... Of course, you waste energy pumping water uphill, but then you waste energy many other ways too.

As I said before, various people are playing with hydrogen and its carrier possibilities. I'm not that up to speed on all this but would be interested in knowing more.

[Peckhamgatecrasher]

I have a vague recollection of Barnes Wallis doing some work on this donkey's years ago. How come nothing has been seriously developed in all that time?

[AcedOut]

Solar power using an array of mirror satellites to beam the energy/light back to Earth based stations is another option - energy beams can be diverted depending on demand and since outside the atmosphere, there will be continuous energy so long as the Sun is there. Tricky bit is safety and potential to use for defence purposes/risk of attack! High intensity energy beams wouldn't be much fun for aeroplanes or anything else getting in its path. There are land based versions of this, which apparently work quite well. Beams are essentially focused on steam turbines.

[Jeremy]

I was also thinking something along the lines of hydrogen... it looks like the most viable fuel for the next generation of cars, companies are investing in the technology...

The problem with storing it as potential energy (pumping water, weights on pulleys, etc) is that surely it consumes an awful lot of space?

[AcedOut]

Fast efficient electrolysis is the answer. Hydroden and oxygen in gas form extracted fast enough from water is the way to go. No one has so far been able to do it fast enough for this to be of practical for use in engines though. Actually, some think that the oil companies bought all the patents/papers for this many years ago. Can't think why!? ;)

[????]

Interestingly it is the market (ie the price of oil) which is now making commercial sense of development of renewable energy sources which means thet it is likely to happen rather than bleating old hippies in health food shops, stoned pierced teenagers padlocked to trees or the front page of the Independent for the last 2 decades....

[AcedOut]

But we'll also need alternatives for plastic etc. Oil has so many applications other than just 'energy'.

[SteveT]

I see this as a potentially new industry, and we should be in it up to our necks.

[Marmora Man]

Fast efficient electrolysis is the answer. Hydrodgen and oxygen in gas form extracted fast enough from water is the way to go.

Won't the input energy exceed the output energy in such a system? Particularly if you factor in energy cost of creating the engine in the first place? Otherwise electrolysis in O2 & H would be a perpetual motion machine - which my physics master taught me was impossible?

[Brendan]

I was told the same thing as a boy. Refusing to believe it I set about drawing up plans for a perpetual motion machine. I?m pretty sure it would have worked too if it was only possible to build a trampoline that would never wear out and could bounce things into orbit.

Back to tidal power this is what they have built in Northern Ireland. http://www.marineturbines.com/3/news/article/10/world_s_first_commercial_scale_tidal_power_system_feeds_electricity_to_the_national_grid__

That's not my article by the way it's from the company that built it. Mine was about future proposals in England and wasn't really that interesting.

[Jeremy]

Marmora Man - yes, of course you're right. This is why the various "water-powered car" scams going around at the moment are such a load of nonsense.

But it may be worth losing some of the energy if it means it can be stored.... perhaps?

[SteveT]

The company was established in 2000 and its principal corporate shareholders include BankInvest, ESB International, EDF Energy, Guernsey Electricity and Triodos Bank.

I spotted this in Brendan's "turbine" link.

[neilson99]

Global grids would be unlikely with current (no pun intended)technology as the levels of losses over such large distances would be very high. Continental Europe is fairly well interconnected so while on a national level different countries have different supply patterns, because of the interconnection the peaks are much more easily manageable than in the UK, which as an island system has its own technical peculiarities.

The idea of low carbon and secure, stable and reliable decentralized micro generators is a myth propagated by the anti nuclear green groups who while claiming to take a lead on climate change issues are actually shirking their responsibilities. These technologies are as yet "unproven" (to be polite) in terms of carbon efficiency and have to be underwritten extensively by public taxes - as in Woking. Still, no different from nuclear and other large scale renewables there then.

If anyone thinks that renewables are cheap and don't have to be under written by taxes (otherwise known as the Renewables Obligation) give energy regulator Ofgem a call or better still the British Wind Energy Association and listen to the panic/silence.

Still, given north sea gas supplies are running down and we'll need to import gas from over seas, we can safely assume the era of cheap energy is well and truly over. The question is what kind of reliability security will we get for our money - and will it be low carbon?

On the tidal point, it is being looked at, a tidal barrage (s) in the river Severn. Could produce almost 9GW of electricity, renewable electricity at that, pretty much predictable as the moon, which is handy. Not cheap tho. The reason its not been done is the expense - no commercial company would go near it. The only way it'll ever happen is via massive government sponsorship.

[SteveT]

Like the massive government sponsorship on the 'super safe' American nuclear system were getting?

[neilson99]

Absolutely!

It'll probably be French by the way.

[Huguenot]

Gaaah! The French! ;-)

I don't see why energy shouldn't be underwritten by government. I just think it should be transparent.

[Burbage]

The point with the nuclear option is that the government can squirrel the money away in a PFI scheme and guarantee the EDF people a decent premium (by getting Ofgen to regulate prices upwards). In short, the goverment wouldn't have to pay anything out and the British public can carry on subsidizing electricity for French consumers. In return, we get a supply of energy secure against all but the most unheard-of and far-fetched events, such as strikes in France or political unrest in the Ukraine.

There is a catch, though. British Energy (the pseudonym de jour of the company that owns the existing plants), has been run like the Forest Hill Baths, and is a filthy, leaking, toxic liability. The government had beamishly presumed that EDF would be happy to buy BE; by putting the new plants where the old ones were, they'd avoid any nasty planning nonsense. What they forgot is that the French don't take much notice of planning issues, and are able to spot a filthy, leaking etc. when they see one. So the government's currently in the business of talking to potential stakeholders regarding cleaning things up. However, as (a) they've just had a lot of their 'secure' containment devices condemned by the Inspector and (b) the people they're talking to are the same as can't empty a bin two weeks in a row, the future of nuclear is likely to remain the underfunded, half-baked, mismanaged, political and financial abyss that it's been since it last looked like the Future.

Even if all that gets sorted out, EDF are currently having problems building nuclear plants at all, on account of hiring unqualified welders who have interestingly bodged some of the more sensitive stuff. Given that both of the UK's welders are on indefinite secondment to Dubai, I don't expect they'll have better luck over here. Unless, that is, they can get guarantees that their work won't need to be checked.

Tidal energy is, for an island with a big coastline and choppy waters, a really good idea and, if not a mature alternative to the atomic alternative, a very sensible option worthy of serious investigation. After all, we have the best locations, the best tides, the best scientists, proper marine engineers and a real need. But against it are stacked many more pressing projects, such as nationalizing railways, buying broken banks and hosting fortnights of footraces. Given a choice between securing the energy supply and buying a better image between elections, any government (and not just the current maliciously ignorant, short-sighted and unarguably evil bunch of grubbing inadequates) will always choose the latter.

The picture isn't entirely gloomy, though. Many foods don't need cooking, and human manure burns well if it's dried for long enough.

[SteveT]

I would have thought with something like 10,000 miles of coastline and millions of gallons flopping in and out a couple of times a day, there would be more energy to be harnessed and exploited than we could ever use, so we could become a net exporter of energy.

Some used to argue that they spend a percentage of the oil revenues on renewables, some of the more cynical might argue that it was a lost opportunity.

[Peckhamgatecrasher]

In today's telegraph:

portugese experiement

[SteveT]

PGC you are a genius finding this stuff.

British government's energy secretary, John Hutton, should take urgent note of the developments of the Portugese experiment say The Telegraph and I whole heartedly agree.

I have been harping on about this for yonks, and a yonk is a long time.

It makes me feel that there is a God out there.

Cynics might argue that some of the Northern Reck bail out money, would have been better spent on renewable energy

technology.

Apologies for any spelling mistakes.

[Jeremy]

SteveT Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Cynics might argue that some of the Northern Reck

> bail out money, would have been better spent on

> renewable energy

> technology.

Someone was saying a similar thing about the US bail-out and world hunger. But it doesn't work like that. With a stable economy, everything else collapses.

[SteveT]

Great post Burbage, I think I will promote you to minister of energy.

PGC can be the minister of information in my government.

Jeremy minister of common sense.

If anyone knows any bankers lying around doing nothing, leave them there, as it is safer for the country they remain in an inert state.

Which, ironicly, is what this island is!