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Science Technology

First Commercial Sub-Sea Tidal Power Station 51

Posted by timothy from the what-a-loony-idea dept.
daksis writes "New Scientist is reporting that the first commercial sub-sea tidal power station has gone online in Hammerfest Norway. 'The power station, which resembles an underwater windmill, began generating electricity for the town of Hammerfest. Although still largely a prototype, the generator is the first in the world to harness the power of the sea and be connected to an electricity grid.' If they can make the technology commercially viable, then we'll have yet another weapon in the arsenal for producing cleaner energy."
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First Commercial Sub-Sea Tidal Power Station More

First Commercial Sub-Sea Tidal Power Station

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  • Think of the fish! (Score:2, Interesting)

    by FroMan ( 111520 )
    Okey, why was there no mention of how many fish are going to get killed by this device?

    Windmills kill birds, wavemills will kill fish!

    Somebody think of the fish!

    </sarcasm>

    Sounds cool. I am all for multiple sources of energy, but one thing many folks forget is that there is a certain amount of environmental impact through all energy sources. These will probably affect the coast lines in some fashion I would guess. I wonder if we'll hear about the different problems these will cause, and have gre
    • Sadly, that's not that sarcastic.

      This issue WILL come up at some point.

      I have a friend who's job it is to count birds that have been chopped in half by the windmills in central California. I'll trade a few birds for clean power but a lot of people won't.

      I don't know why they don't just put a mesh cage around the blades of the damn things.

      If the birds are stupid enough to fly into a wall of mesh it's their own damn fault.

    • 10 meter blades... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by spineboy ( 22918 ) on Wednesday September 24, 2003 @10:10AM (#7044153) Journal
      10 meter blades that they have are spinning quite slowly - I'm sure the fish could easily swim out of the way. I'm sure they also wanted to avoid seaweed and have some sort of filter/fence to prevent stuff from clogging up the blade.
      • In a previous article concerning these underwater windmills, it was actually stated that the blades turn too slowly to harm marine life. I'm sorry,I don't have a link for you.
    • I'm afraid that you're too late. Pumped-storage hydropower stations have already been cited for fish kills. I can only find indirect references; link [record-eagle.com], another link [greenbaypressgazette.com].
    • I have surfed at a beach near San Clemente, California where there is a giant NUCLEAR plant that uses sea water to cool it. Somehow i think these will be better for the fish. Unless you like blinkey... (mmm three eyed fish)
      • Actually, the water has no real contamination. The Deuterium is used to cool the reactors, and the seawater is passed through a heat exchanger to remove latent heat from the heavy water, where it is then cooled via evaporation, and returned to the ocean. The inner cooling loop is a closed loop.
        • so they remove the heat before returning it? because i was under the impression that they were causing massive amounts of heat pollution
          • That's the purpose of those massive cooling towers, which spray the water into the air, and the wind is channelled into up through the mist, removing the heat. The water falls back down, past the atomisers, and is collected, where it is returned to the sea.

  • Not the first (Score:5, Informative)

    by Cy Guy ( 56083 ) * on Wednesday September 24, 2003 @10:00AM (#7043997) Homepage Journal
    The Annapolis Tidal Power [ic.gc.ca] station at the mouth of the Annapolis river in Nova Scotia's Bay of Fundy has been running (and providing power to Nova Scotia Power's grid) since the mid '80s. (this PDF of a magazine article [electricalline.com] provides more info.)

    While considered a "pilot" operation, it does generate 20 MW of power, supplying the electrical needs for 4500 customers.

    • yeah I visited that plant!! It's awesome! And for people that wonder about the health of the fish, they have put nets on both sides of the plant to make sure no water is used to hit on the turbine and not fish!! :-)

    • Re:Not the first (Score:3, Informative)

      by canthusus ( 463707 )
      The Annapolis Tidal Power station at the mouth of the Annapolis river in Nova Scotia's Bay of Fundy has been running (and providing power to Nova Scotia Power's grid) since the mid '80s

      Impressive though the Annapolis station is, it's not a "sub-sea tidal power station". It's a good old-fashioned tidal barrage. They're a little out of fashion at the moment, because of their effect on salt marshes etc. Ideally, of course, the story would have described it as "the first sub-sea tidal power station of its

    • You write:
      While considered a "pilot" operation, it does generate 20 MW of power, supplying the electrical needs for 4500 customers.

      Where on earth do you arrive at that 20MW figure?

      Remember that "Watts" are not the same as "Watt-hours". (The first is power, the second is energy.)

      From the Annapolis site you referenced:
      It employs the largest straight-flow turbine in the world to generate more than 30 million kilowatt-hours of electricity per year, enough for 4500 homes.

      30 gigaWatt-hours / hours-p
      • Where on earth do you arrive at that 20MW figure?

        From the first link: "The 148 tonne turbine can generate 20 megawatts at peak output."

        From the second (PDF) link: "In 1984, the company assumed operation of the Annapolis Tidal Generating Station, a federal and provincial government pilot project initially designed to explore harnessing energy from the sea that now contributes its 20 MW capacity to the provincial grid."

        But as another poster has pointed out, I erred in that it is a barrage type plant -
  • The device harnesses the tidal energy of the sea in the same way windmills tap into the power of air currents. The generator consists of ten metre diameter blades which rotate as water passes over them. These in turn drive a generator to produce electricity. The whole mechanism is held aloft by a 20 metre steel column anchored to the seabed.

    Have any studies been done on how these windmills might affect marine life living in that area? The unfortunate thing is that no source of electricity that I have seen
    • The unfortunate thing is that no source of electricity that I have seen is purely "clean".

      Even solar?
      • You have to make the solar panels first.
        • that's assuming i'd be using solar panels...

          what if i decided to create a big, flat container, paint it black, fill it fulla water, hook up some pipes to it and put it outside... then run those pipes into a turbine... no solar panels, no harmful ingredients, closed, self-contained system...

          remember: that's how power plants work... create steam (by whatever means) and use it to power turbines...
          • that's how most solar "stations" work too, but they still have to use some sort of solar panel to collect the heat (that are not just painted black)
      • Even solar has problems with the environment. At Solar One (and presumably Solar Two, which used the same setup), there was a problem with birds flying into the mirrors at full speed, which tended to be a bit fatal for the bird. Also, considering the amount of concentrated sunlight near those towers, I wonder how a bird fared if it flew through. It was probably like passing through a solar oven.


    • there is no question in my mind that fuel-based (both fossil and nuclear) energy sources have a larger and more disruptive ecological footprint

      Then the fossil fuel industry funded anti-nuclear propaganda machine has done its job well. That's a relief, since now they'll have to turn their efforts to convincing you that tidal energy is dirty too. Knowing them, they won't rest until there is no question in your mind that tidal energy, like nuclear, has an ecological footprint "just as large as fossil fuel

      • Hey, I'm not saying that fossil fuel plants are any better than nuclear power plants; I'm just saying that both are worse than power plants that don't rely on mining and end up with pollutants (in once case, air pollution and in the other case, radioactive waste that needs to be stored away somewhere).

        • Hey, I'm not saying that fossil fuel plants are any better than nuclear power plants;

          Fair enough; I'm saying that (despite all the propaganda) nuclear is a lot better than fossil fuels.

          in once case, air pollution and in the other case, radioactive waste that needs to be stored away somewhere

          The key difference being that there are simple ecologically sound technical fixes for nuclear wastes--you can mix them back in with the tailings and put them back in the mines they came from, or drop them in a su

  • Not completely renewable (Score:5, Funny)

    by tjgoodwin ( 133622 ) on Wednesday September 24, 2003 @10:03AM (#7044059) Homepage
    I guess if the USA ever adopts tidal farms, future generations can look forward to a president (massively funded by the tide industry, of course) attempting to derail any action over Global Slowing...
    • All of these "tidal energy" stations have ir-reversibly changed the ocean currents. Ocean currents are a major factor in weather patterns. Changing weather patterns are causing general alarm. Fear mongers use the alarm to blame new weather patterns on fossil fuel use. Mis-guided governments are increasing the use of tidal energy stations. But more tidal energy stations are causing more ocean current stagnation. Which in turn increases more different weather patterns.

  • tidal power isn't new (Score:5, Informative)

    by misterpies ( 632880 ) on Wednesday September 24, 2003 @10:06AM (#7044102)
    >>the generator is the first in the world to harness the power of the sea and be connected to an electricity grid

    That's plain untrue. Tidal barrages -- which use the tidally-driven flow seawater in and out of a river mouth or basin -- have been used to generate electricity for decades. A barrage across the Rance, in northern France, opened in 1967 and has been generating enough power to supply 200 000 homes ever since.
    • But thats not an underwater one - well obviously some of it is underwater, but its still has a visual impact
      • I fully accept that -- but the original post was claiming that this was the first time the "power of the sea" had been harnessed to a national grid in any way, not just via an undersea solution.

        But to be really nitpicking, I should point out that it's not the power of the sea being harnessed at all -- it's the power of the moon. Or strictly, the earth-moon gravitational field.
        • it's the power of the moon. Or strictly, the earth-moon gravitational field.

          Well the sun has an effect too
        • IANAP, but I don't think the energy is coming from the gravitational field between the earth and the moon. If it was, the moon would slowly be getting closer to the earth as we sucked up the juice. I would venture that the power is coming from the earth's rotational energy - ie: days will slowly become longer as we suck up more juice...

          BP
        • But to be really nitpicking, I should point out that it's not the power of the sea being harnessed at all -- it's the power of the moon. Or strictly, the earth-moon gravitational field.

          The energy comes from there but the moon is not the actor, it's the impetus. A few years ago when a semi smashed my car and then drove off, I didn't tell the cop that the giant dent was caused by gasoline!

  • People thought that hydroelectric power was pollution free, but animal rights activists have sued and protested over a dam's ability to chop fish into tiny pieces.

    How do we know for certain that tidalectric power won't meet the same resistance? I mean, I can see one of these in Florida chopping up manatee. That would be enough grounds for the activists to sue and otherwise hamstring another means of obtaining power.

    • Re:But, what about? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Smidge204 ( 605297 ) on Wednesday September 24, 2003 @11:24AM (#7045004) Journal
      Tidal power tubines spin rather slowly - About 25RPM. And they're not sharp like high-speed turbine blades.

      A 10-meter turbine (5 meter radius - about 16 feet) spinning at a top speef of 20RPM (about 2 radians per second) would have a tip speed of about 11 meters per second (~33 feet per second).

      That's pretty slow. 30MPH actually. But that's a conservative estimate.

      Also, unlike hydroelectric dams, there's no strong current sucking everything into the blades - just tidal currents.
      =Smidge=
      • > That's pretty slow. 30MPH actually.

        Ok Smidge, let's show everyone how safe this is by simulating a Manatee strike. You will stick your head out, and have it struck by a 5-meter blade moving at 33 feet per second. Repeatedly.

        • I'm not saying we should set bait to lure the poor helpless Manatees to their doom. What I am saying is that these turbines are not going to be spinning at 2000RPM, churning the water into a froth and sucking up hapless sea life. It's a remarkable tame and harmless technology, and properly implemented poses no more threat to sea life than what you probably flush down the toilet every day.

          So you obviously don't want to consider tidal power.

          You're probably against wind power for the same reasons, (even thou
    • manatee

      I think a modest screen that is large enough to exert relatively low pressure differentials will protect the manatees in the area. However, what I'm really worried about are the sea monkeys. Poor little guys.

    • Manatees don't live in places suitable for this application. You have to have water deep enough to put the turbine on a pylon above the seabed and still have it deep enough for vessel traffic to clear.
      And, of course you need strong, nearly continuous currents to make it worthwhile. (Think high latitudes)

  • power of the sea? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Derek ( 1525 ) on Wednesday September 24, 2003 @10:50AM (#7044599) Journal
    "Although still largely a prototype, the generator is the first in the world to harness the power of the sea..."
    Should that be "...to harness to power of the moon..."?

    -Derek

    • Should that be "...to harness to power of the moon..."?

      How many watt-hours does the moon offer us, anyway?

      Will it be enough for the next generation of Pentium 4 CPUs?

  • Power (Score:5, Funny)

    by isorox ( 205688 ) on Wednesday September 24, 2003 @11:43AM (#7045262) Homepage Journal
    The tidal mill produces 300-kilowatts of electricity - enough to power 30 Norwegian houses or 60-80 British homes

    Or half of a slashdotters basement

  • If only it was that easy (Score:3, Insightful)

    by chia_monkey ( 593501 ) on Wednesday September 24, 2003 @01:52PM (#7047128) Journal
    It would be nice to use all these nice, clean, efficient methods of generating electricity but I can't help having a little skepticism. It's amazing what a little political involvement, some lobbying, and big bucks can do. It's really sad that we can't truly preserve the planet because of the deep pockets of some major oil companies.

    "Oops, our tanker just leaked some crude and it somehow sank down and ruined your generators. sorry"
  • I can't believe that the Norwegians are so irresponsible - don't they realise that by harnessing tidal power they are going to make the moon recede from us even faster than it is already!

    For every year that passes the moon recedes (on average) by half an inch a year. This can only make things worse!

    Don't blame me if your kid asks you one day "What's this moon thing you keep talking about? ... Don't cry Dad please, you're embarrasing me"

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