Dunc wrote:Plus the fact that the coal/gas power output can be constant even at 50%. Wind you dont have all the time, waves you dont have all the time and just think in the winter when we have a large anti-cyclone over the uk..cold and not a breath of wind whats the good of wind then..
Wave power: they had a device up in the Pentland Firth a few years ago and it lasted one gale!!! so lot of work needed there.
Just a crying shame what did what they did to the miners.
Duncan
As I mentioned in a post elsewhere Dunc, there is a full scale test on wave power going on in Portugal which will produce electricity in viable amounts.
The version which was tested off Dounreay (not the Pentland Firth) was quite small scale actually, and that was the problem. I t was designed to be a long row of nodding blades....so they tried one on its own, and as you said, it lasted one gale. They were told it was too light, but didn't listen, they tried to use makeshift anchors instead. They weren't able to gather much in the way of data, and couldn't recover it, because it was contaminated. It had been placed near the outflow from Dounreay (not sure how all you proponents of Nuclear energy balance the discharge of carbons into the atmosphere form coal fueled power stations against the nuclear waste from the nuclear power stations. Global warming is a theory, nuclear wast WILL kill you). I had to issue the dumping at sea licence for it, and was involved in the subsequent fishing exclusion zone around the outflow.
