Tidal Energy
Tidal Energy
Tidal Planetary Energy
Tidal Energy
The Moon orbits the Earth in 27.5 days as the Earth rotates daily. The result is that each day there are two high tides and two low tides. Over the planet, the tidal heights range from a few centimetres to the order of 10 metres. Some places geographical locations get bigger tides. Tides and the currents they are involved with can be used to generate power.
If you stand under a 10 metre high column of water that is 1 metre by 1 metre wide, you have 10 tons on your head. This weight can instead be translated to a lot of energy and harnessed. Mostly it is not used. The energy of the tides is commonly stated to be about 3 TW, which, at present, is about the same as the world's total electrical power requirement. That is currently about 2.5TW.
While the exact amount of tidal energy is not known, the 3TW calculated is already huge and mainly untapped. There may well be more subject to further research.
What, Where, How, When...
By using turbines or barriers, energy, particularly electrical energy can be drawn and moved to where there is demand. The siting and location of tidal energy generators is increasingly being explored as is the design of the generators themselves.
The main message is that Tidal Energy Transference needs to be done now. It represents a hugely economical and environmentally superior alternative to most current methods for the scales of energy realisable. It can already be done using available technology that is used in shipbuilding and requires no hi-tech prior research, barriers or thresholds to overcome. Improvements through R&D are always welcome, but the do not in any way hold back what can be done now.
Generation Considerations
Continuity of Supply
The movement of water involves all the water processes;- evaporation, precipitation, freezing, thawing, oceanic and river currents, as well as tidal movement.
Bearing in mind that one cubic meter of water weighs a ton and even a pail of water is heavy, the energy involved in all the displacement of water is huge and continuous.
Locations for Generation
The tides at some locations are measured to find what is physically available as regards height, breadth and time. Because tides are viewed as reasonably consistent and having well calculated statistics, predictions can be made as to future energy available. The construction of generating machinery to harvest tidal energy can next be tackled.
Economic Requirement
Items of concern are the engineering details and the environmental details. Finding an ideally optimised engineering and geographical solution to positioning and operating a generator is attached to the economics of cost, i.e. demand and supply. What is deemed affordable will underpin what is built, but not necessarily what is the best engineering solution. Tidal generation because of the vast amount of energy available does not need to run at 100%. It does not need the biggest and bestest of solutions. It simply needs a good harmonious design.
Environment and Ecology
Another concern is the impact of placing and operating machinery in and around an environment. Run at full tilt, a generating system could have severe consequences, while running at 15% of potential would be inconsequential. Finding this information is a vital aspect.
The figure of 15% has gained traction as an acceptable level for generator capability output. If at 15% output a generator can still be economical, a notional hall mark has been established and thresholded, even if it is lacking in specifications as to the actual power, flow, turbulence, sedimentation, current and many other details that directly alter an environment.
If the planet has a consciousness that communicates with humans, it would probably express the desire to have no emplacement of generating equipment, that being un-natural and deleterious to the environment. It is therefore a context of mitigation, the minimising of ecological hurt that is a factor that while seemingly having no direct voice is yet very powerful in both short and long term. We ignore the environment in our ignorance and at our peril.
Another way of placing this idea is to state that we are not trading with planet, we are cheating ourselves if we do not carefully build in serious cast iron cautions as to how any generating machinery is emplaced. Tidal Generation is extremely well placed to rank above other systems in damage minimisation.
Kinds of Power Generating Equipment
What is Generated
What is being done in all cases is the transfer of energy in one form of packaging to another.
Usually the generation done is electrical, but that is for convenience of transferring the energy farther away. Direct generation of power could very well be for powering pumps, hydraulic or pneumatic, where no intermediate electrical phase is needed.
Kinds of Generators
There are many different designs of power generating equipment with basically two kinds ;-
1) Machinery that directly uses the force of the water, sometimes collected or guided, against a surface that is attached in some way to a spindle or axle such that rotation of the axle results. The axle is in turn attached ultimately to an electricity conversion unit.
2) A flotation device that uses the relative density of water against some lighter substance to lift it at high tide and when the tide ebbs, the lifted material then lowers and by means of attached gears drives generating equipment.
Operational Considerations
Being able to easily and safely emplace generating equipment and then also to maintain it easily, safely and economically are important requirements. Some designs address this as part of their "from the ground up" design. Other designs factor this in as an add-on. Local considerations and conditions govern what is better, when and where.
Manufacture And Recycling
The cost of production in terms of energy and materials used is not yet a well documented subject.
The recycling of materials is likewise a topic in its infancy.
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