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Ocean Current Turbines Dangerous!!
First, there is the problem of fish kill. Spinning turbine blades are quite fast at or near the tips. We already have enough threatened species of deep ocean fish. Tuna for instance are becoming harder and harder to find.
Second, ocean currents transport quite a lot of heat. The East Coast of the US for instance, and all of Western Europe is warmed by the Gulf Stream. Shut down the Gulf Stream, and Rome Italy will have the same climate as Buffalo New York, or Chicago Illinois. London and Siberia would be about the same temperature.
The same problems exist for Japan, Korea, and the entire West Coast of the US.
What a turbine does is to remove energy of motion from the working fluid. This slows the fluid down.An efficient enough turbine will almost stop the working fluid. Air or water makes no real difference. You just change the turbine design to match the properties of the fluid.
Remember the Water Cycle from High School Science? Rain ultimately comes from the Oceans. Water vapor is carried by winds to the land. Winds at different altitudes are weakly coupled, but, are coupled. Remove enough energy in any area, and you have successfully transformed that area into a desert.
Western Europe is already seeing reduced rainfall as they transform to a wind based electrical system. Right now, that is being blamed on CO2. In 10 years or so, it will probably be blamed on wind turbines.
Atmospheric physicists have calculated how much wind energy can be tapped before the results become severe enough to merit action. the result is about a Gigawatt in any one area, and around 10 Terrawatts globally, that's around twice the energy currently generated by Nuclear Power in the US, as a ceiling for worldwide power, and close to the current worldwide total for Hydroelectric power.
In the US, both California and Texas are close to the gigawatt limit for Wind Power, and both are currently experiencing drought downwind of the Wind farms. Maybe it's just a coincidence?
I wonder if there is a connection?
Every time an energy price hike comes up, these sorts of things are trotted out as wonderful cure alls, but the downsides are never considered. Every power source has downsides.
Wind Power has been used in the US since the 1920s, but was never cost effective if there was utility power available. The problem was always backup. That is still true. Wind Power has to be backed up. usually by burning coal. That means that the Utility that uses large scale wind power has to keep a coal fired power plant running the whole time so that it can be ramped up to full output in a few minutes if the wind stops. Winds don't blow all the time, so that scenario happens usually a couple of time s a week. To make Wind Power economically competitive, Utilities are required to buy the output of the Wind farms, and still they require Federal subsidies of close to 25% of total revenues.
Because of this, Wind and Solar power increases the use of dirty old Coal as a power source.
I suspect that if undersea turbines are ever built, we will find problems with them too. Corrosion comes to mind, as well as inspection and maintenance. It's really quite hard to conduct routine maintenance on something that is 300 meters below sea level. Make it higher, and it will become a navigation hazard. Most commercial power plants have about 10% downtime for maintenance. Wind or Water turbines currently have more downtime than that. But, should approach that level of reliability in time.
Really, the only major workable economic option we have is Nuclear. The real Ecologists have recognized this for close to a Decade now. So do most of the real Engineers. It's the hobby ecological movement that is against Nuclear.
I suspect that we will continue putting off the inevitable conversion to Nuclear generation, and electric transportation until the last minute then use old technology because it's what we know. That would be the worst way to do it.
The Last Minute happens right after a large number of people lose their air conditioning one summer. When that happened in California a decade or so ago, they just shut down all the clean air provisions and pulled their power from anywhere they could. Imagine that happening from Houston to Chicago.
it would be Bye Bye EPA, Shut Up Sierra Club, and streamline any possible replacement. No one will want to wait 10 years to fix things.
Too bad it takes around 10 years to design and build a power plant.
Second, ocean currents transport quite a lot of heat. The East Coast of the US for instance, and all of Western Europe is warmed by the Gulf Stream. Shut down the Gulf Stream, and Rome Italy will have the same climate as Buffalo New York, or Chicago Illinois. London and Siberia would be about the same temperature.
The same problems exist for Japan, Korea, and the entire West Coast of the US.
What a turbine does is to remove energy of motion from the working fluid. This slows the fluid down.An efficient enough turbine will almost stop the working fluid. Air or water makes no real difference. You just change the turbine design to match the properties of the fluid.
Remember the Water Cycle from High School Science? Rain ultimately comes from the Oceans. Water vapor is carried by winds to the land. Winds at different altitudes are weakly coupled, but, are coupled. Remove enough energy in any area, and you have successfully transformed that area into a desert.
Western Europe is already seeing reduced rainfall as they transform to a wind based electrical system. Right now, that is being blamed on CO2. In 10 years or so, it will probably be blamed on wind turbines.
Atmospheric physicists have calculated how much wind energy can be tapped before the results become severe enough to merit action. the result is about a Gigawatt in any one area, and around 10 Terrawatts globally, that's around twice the energy currently generated by Nuclear Power in the US, as a ceiling for worldwide power, and close to the current worldwide total for Hydroelectric power.
In the US, both California and Texas are close to the gigawatt limit for Wind Power, and both are currently experiencing drought downwind of the Wind farms. Maybe it's just a coincidence?
I wonder if there is a connection?
Every time an energy price hike comes up, these sorts of things are trotted out as wonderful cure alls, but the downsides are never considered. Every power source has downsides.
Wind Power has been used in the US since the 1920s, but was never cost effective if there was utility power available. The problem was always backup. That is still true. Wind Power has to be backed up. usually by burning coal. That means that the Utility that uses large scale wind power has to keep a coal fired power plant running the whole time so that it can be ramped up to full output in a few minutes if the wind stops. Winds don't blow all the time, so that scenario happens usually a couple of time s a week. To make Wind Power economically competitive, Utilities are required to buy the output of the Wind farms, and still they require Federal subsidies of close to 25% of total revenues.
Because of this, Wind and Solar power increases the use of dirty old Coal as a power source.
I suspect that if undersea turbines are ever built, we will find problems with them too. Corrosion comes to mind, as well as inspection and maintenance. It's really quite hard to conduct routine maintenance on something that is 300 meters below sea level. Make it higher, and it will become a navigation hazard. Most commercial power plants have about 10% downtime for maintenance. Wind or Water turbines currently have more downtime than that. But, should approach that level of reliability in time.
Really, the only major workable economic option we have is Nuclear. The real Ecologists have recognized this for close to a Decade now. So do most of the real Engineers. It's the hobby ecological movement that is against Nuclear.
I suspect that we will continue putting off the inevitable conversion to Nuclear generation, and electric transportation until the last minute then use old technology because it's what we know. That would be the worst way to do it.
The Last Minute happens right after a large number of people lose their air conditioning one summer. When that happened in California a decade or so ago, they just shut down all the clean air provisions and pulled their power from anywhere they could. Imagine that happening from Houston to Chicago.
it would be Bye Bye EPA, Shut Up Sierra Club, and streamline any possible replacement. No one will want to wait 10 years to fix things.
Too bad it takes around 10 years to design and build a power plant.
Edited by YetAnotherBob
Updated - 18th Sep