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[–] 19 points 1 year ago (1 child)

the Swedish company SKF announced that its bearings and seals on one of the turbines had passed the 6 1/2-year mark without needing unplanned or disruptive maintenance.

I've read many optimistic articles detailing tidal energy projects, however they seldom address the inherent upkeep costs for equipment and infrastructure.

I'm glad maintenance is mentioned here, but I worry that it glosses over that only one out of the four turbines passed the six year mark without needing disruptive repair. How disruptive was the other turbine maintenance? Does it push it beyond viable profitability?

I genuinely do hope for the technology to mature and introduce more clean energy alternatives.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago

    The one that survived without needing to be shut off essentially serves as proof of viability, and combined with the data from the ones that was repaired it helps them figure out how to adjust the design and manufacturing to make every unit last longer. Basically, future turbines should be cheaper to run.

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  • 17 comments in c/climate@slrpnk.net view that post
    [–] 13 points 1 year ago (7 children)

    Not sure how feasible it is to roll this out large scale. There aren't that many stretches of water as lively as the pentland firth.

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  • [–] 17 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    This is true, but I think the big thing is that this lasted as long as it did. Material science is important, and if we want Io scale these up for more general use we need to make sure they can at least survive.

    Thanks to the power of two, a larger diameter blade could capture a lot more energy, and might be put in places with lesser tidal bores.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago* (1 child)

    The problem is not that there isn't enough tidal power. The problem is that the pentland firth is both fast enough and deep enough. Orkney alone probably has enough tidal power to serve all of Scotland's needs, but most of the tide races are no more than 5 meters deep. The meygen turbine has a 18 m diameter so it's hard to find places that can support it in a way that doesn't pose a danger for surface vessels but also has a current fast enough to generate a meaningful amount of electricity.

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  • [–] [S] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    Not sure on the numbers, but in videos I've seen dozens of places where -all- the local power cud be tidally-generated, and I suspect there'd be hundreds of places around the world. Largely depends on the geology around the local tides.

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  • For sure, but meygen is way too big for most fast moving tide races. And most places that are deep enough don't have a fast enough current. The pentland firth is unusual in that it is both deep enough and has a current in the order of around 10 - 15 knots in places. It flows like a relatively fast moving river. It's not a normal stretch of water.

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  • [–] 13 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (6 children)

    One of the more badass sources of power. You've got uranium from supernovas, some form of captured solar energy, tapping the heat from the planet's core, or, in this case, directly slowing down the very rotation of the earth while pushing the moon away.

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  • [–] [S] 2 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    That planetary core thing will probably be quite a way off, tho it last for millions of years. But the whole planet is swathed in tides, in-and-out.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (2 children)

    Yeah and any friction from tides(instead of free movement) slows the rotation and pushes the moon away. It's using the leverage of the gravity to perform work against the planet itself. Devices like underwater turbines, by extracting energy from the tidal currents, effectively increase this friction, which in turn amplifies the effect. The amount of energy naturally pulled out of this system is entirely dependent on the size of the tidal bulge and the shape of the seafloor/coast.

    As for geothermal, we do use it, but only in hot spots.

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  • [–] [S] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    Sit down sometime, make a realistic model of tidal power usage, and then figure out how long it'd before before 'the moon being pushed away' becomes visible. Once you can do that, then come back here and tell us about your calculations.

    Of course the tides 'rubbing against' the Earth's surface have been 'pushing the moon away' at a far, far greater rate for billions of years. Big deal.

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  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago

    Tides go in, tides go out, never a miscommunication.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    I wonder what the EROEI over projected lifetime is. Hopefully, comparable to generic hydro.

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  • 1 comment in c/tidalpunk@slrpnk.net view that post
    [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    It looks like this project is one of those that take into account marine life and try to have minimal impact on it.

    For more on this, see section Key Environmental Issues:

    MeyGen Tidal Energy Project

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  • 1 comment in c/hackernews@lemmy.bestiver.se view that post
    [–] 1 point 1 year ago

    ... there are still large hurdles to overcome before tidal energy can be adopted more widely, such as dealing with regulatory issues, potential environmental effects and conflicts with other ocean users.

    I was wondering about that. What happens to the weather, animal habitats, and everything if you slow tides and currents with a larger number of these things? Still gotta be better than burning fossil fuels.

    It’s very hard to take what is essentially a wind turbine normally found on land and put it under water, said Fraser Johnson, operations and maintenance manager at MeyGen. The record-setting turbine should keep going for at least another year before it needs to come out of the water for maintenance, he added.

    With a sample size of ONE (okay, maybe four) that projection seems optimistic, but I'm hoping he's correct.

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