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World’s Largest Tidal Turbine Successfully Installed

enn.com — The world ’s largest tidal turbine, weighing 1000 tonnes, has been installed in Northern Ireland’s Strangford Lough. The tidal turbine is rated at 1.2 megawatts, which is enough to power a thousand local homes. It was built by Marine Current Turbines, and it will be the first commercial tidal turbine to produce energy...

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Mattman9876 187 days ago, made popular 187 days ago

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ntdesign, on 04/09/2008, -1/+3http://www.nspower.ca/environment/green_power/tida ...
Bmarofsky, on 04/09/2008, -0/+8Awesome- I hope it is a success.
I also hope the so called environmentalists don't poo poo the idea and claim it kills fish or something (like when they claimed wind farms diced up migratory birds).
- richbleak, on 04/09/2008, -0/+1No, instead we will be asked to consider the pollution involved in creating and implementing the turbine by the self-proclaimed big-oil lobby that has been running around digg.
- tdogg241, on 04/09/2008, -0/+1I'm more interested in the impacts to the habitat itself, since this device will remove the local tidal energy.
- caponumen, on 04/09/2008, -0/+1What if it does kills fish and other sea life?
  What if maintenance causes pollution problems?
  What about the lost habitat?
  Everything has an environmental impact even if it sounds good, it may easily be worse than what it is replacing.
  Ignoring these issues just because you hate big oil, big coal or big nuclear is not rational or GREEN.....
anshuman, on 04/09/2008, -0/+3nice giant tide for mankind :)
wrathchilde, on 04/09/2008, -0/+2Excellent news. Bio-fouling is what killed the Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) power generation. Thin coatings inhibited heat transfer sufficiently that efficiency was reduced below a critical threshold. Hopefully the underwater moving parts will withstand the physical, chemical and biological conditions.
thesuker, on 04/09/2008, -0/+1Well, what good is an environmental-friendly power-generating solution if it affects the environment in a negative way? If it doesn't, no problem. If it does, find a way around it.

Anyways, lets hope all goes well and many happy families are power-supplied.
getrealnow, on 04/09/2008, -7/+1"The tidal turbine is rated at 1.2 megawatts, which is enough to power a thousand local homes."

So how much would 1.1 jiggawatts power?
- radix2, on 04/09/2008, -1/+3well, next up is a gigawatt (which would power a million homes), and then there would be a terawatt (which would power a billion homes) and then there would be a petawatt (which would power a trillion homes). Not sure wat a jijjawatt is, but it seems to be more than we need right now...
- friendlyman, on 04/09/2008, -2/+0I think you meant 1.21 jiggawatts
- ripple123, on 04/09/2008, -1/+6That was idiotic, inane, and not funny in the slightest and added absolutely nothing to the discussion. I want to punch you in the face for each second of my life I wasted reading that. Go fail somewhere else.
  - GunOfSod, on 04/09/2008, -1/+2How many jiggapunches would that be?
tabularassa, on 04/09/2008, -1/+9"The tidal turbine is rated at 1.2 megawatts, which is enough to power a thousand local homes."

Or one computer running Crysis in high detail mode
nadavs2, on 04/09/2008, -0/+1Finally people begin to realize the power of never-ending energy sources.
The efficiency wasn't specified. Hopefully it's more than 10%...
timsantiago, on 04/09/2008, -0/+6From the picture, it seems you could attach a wind turbine on top as well!
- thestrongrope, on 04/09/2008, -0/+1I was thinking the exact same thing. With a big enough turbine couldn't you effectively double the output. Personally I would love to see about a dozen of these surrounding Manhattan in the East and the Hudson rivers.
Zonf86, on 04/09/2008, -1/+2Swish
luag, on 04/09/2008, -2/+10I've been wondering about this.

Tide energy is converted into electricity, right? So a fraction of the global tide energy is "lost" or converted into something else.

So if there are lots and lots and lots of these turbines all over the world, will it affect the global tide energy? In my mind, the worst case scenario is that because so much of these tidal energy is converted into other form of energy, the tide would stop circulating the earth.

Is that possible?
- radix2, on 04/09/2008, -0/+4the energy is currently converted into heat and sound. We are capturing a fraction of that energy to produce electricity (which will eventually be converted to light, heat and sound). No energy is lost - just repurposed. There would be some effect as far as the "violence" of tides, but I don't think you need to worry about things from this perspective.
- mickstephenson, on 04/09/2008, -0/+2If you built one from Cape Horn to the Antarctic another from the Cape of Good Hope to the antarctic, and one from The Antarctic to Australia to Japan to China, then yes.
  - radix2, on 04/09/2008, -0/+2I don't know why you were downvoted then. What you say is at least partially correct as it would interfere with the currents, which would have an effect on the climate and migratory paths etc and would thus be cause for concern. It would not change tidal force though (which is caused by the Moon's orbit). Currents are powered by thermal differentials, tides by gravity (to put it simply - of course there are some currents caused by tides, but not the main oceanic ones affected in your example).
  - fredhag, on 04/09/2008, -0/+1Although mickstephenson is right, I don't think you need a single one that size. Instead, you need to have such a density of regular installations that one sees "diminishing returns" and this would happen with a large density of wind turbines also. Imagine that a row of wind turbines all slow the wind passing by them some small degree, a second row would have less wind to draw energy, and so forth. For now, this is really academic because I could not imagine construction getting to that stage (and I remember seeing that engineers do try to model these efects when designing wind farms).
    - mickstephenson, on 04/09/2008, -0/+1To be honest I made that post before I RTFA and I assumed that this was the type where you dam up a bay allow water to flow in freely as the tide rises, close it off and allow the water to escape through a turbine at low tide. Ooops
- venuspcs, on 04/09/2008, -0/+2Installing them along coast lines will have little to no effect on Global Tides. Now if you where to install them in the middle of the ocean (specifically in thermals or channels) then yes it would make some rather significant changes to the Global Tide, but along the coast not so much and here is why.....When a tide comes rolling onto land almost all the energy is lost when it hits land, the remaining energy is lost with in a few hundred feet of land as it bounces back out to sea. So installing these along coast lines would only effect the Tide Energy within a few hundred feet of land.
- campingstick, on 04/09/2008, -0/+1The effect we would have on the "global tide energy" by building tidal farms is negligible compared to the drag of the world's islands, reefs, archipelagos and continents.
  - Duositex, on 04/09/2008, -0/+1Putting these near a sensitive ecosystem could absolutely alter that ecosystem. There are dozens of plants and animals that rely on currents for food and reproduction. Removing tide energy from small embayments, the mouths of rivers, and other localized tidal zones would obviously reduce the flow rate of the water in those areas and hence the exchange of nutrients, oxygen, and other components necessary for life would be affected.
    On that note, the same is true for solar power and wind. They aren't "free" sources of energy. Tapping them is taking the energy that has always entered our biosphere in one manner and forcing it to enter our biosphere in another. Tap it enough and you've maginally altered the amount of energy in the system in it's original form and suddenly everyone will notice changes similar to what they claim are happening as result of fossil fuel usage.
- grahambot, on 04/09/2008, -0/+1Seems like you'd need to have enough turbines installed to counterbalance the gravitational pull of the moon, and constantly turn them on and off in sync with the moon's orbit in order to stop tidal flows.
- caponumen, on 04/09/2008, -0/+1Yes.
KiloKaan, on 04/09/2008, -2/+0I wonder how much will the power cost
- radix2, on 04/09/2008, -0/+2real cost? That would be a function of the cost of research, construction, maintenance and any licensing/leasing costs. That will probably have little, if any real similarity to what people *pay* for it...
- luag, on 04/09/2008, -0/+1Approximately 1000 Kaans per kilowatt? :P
- mickstephenson, on 04/09/2008, -0/+2The power will just be added to the national grid so the end user won't be able to choose power from this particular generator, you just pay as much as you would pay with your power company.
Ell3, on 04/09/2008, -6/+3Spend the money on a nuclear plant. It makes more sense.
- jdunlop2179, on 04/09/2008, -0/+3dumbass
mandeeps, on 04/09/2008, -0/+1This turbine is very useful for the people of the country where it is installed and people will enjoy there life in light
- Vo0Ds, on 04/09/2008, -0/+1We have light in Northern Ireland now...
AussieJake, on 04/09/2008, -1/+4From the press release..."The risk of impact from SeaGen rotor blades is small, because the marine creatures that swim in strong currents tend to be agile, and can avoid slow-moving underwater obstructions."

The turbine is 16 meters in diameter (r=8m) and does up to 20 revs/minute. Going back to my high school maths, the circumference is 2xPIExR - 2 x 3.14x8 = about 50 meters. So the tips of this turbine travel 50 meters every 3 seconds which is almost 40 miles per hour. Let's rephrase the press release to read...

"The risk of impact from SeaGen rotor blades is likely, because the marine creatures that swim in strong currents tend to forget about also having to dodge huge blades spinning ***** fast..."
- Duositex, on 04/09/2008, -0/+1He's flipper, flipper, flipper,
  Faster than tuuuurrrrbines...
QImaster, on 04/09/2008, -0/+2Woot ! Northern Ireland for the win !
- Vo0Ds, on 04/09/2008, -0/+1NORTHERN IRELAND, ***** YEAH! TURBINES, ... ERM... FIELDS, ALCOHOLIC FOOTBALLERS...
GliTCH82, on 04/09/2008, -0/+1This is a step in the right direction, clean energy working with nature instead of destroying ecosystems. We need more of this, there's so much kinetic energy right here on earth. Let's start harnessing that instead of relying on the potential energy found in oil.
vmos, on 04/09/2008, -0/+1I watched this being assembled from my desk here, I hope it doesn't slice up too many seals
Slagtits, on 04/09/2008, -0/+1I wonder if it will work at night.
- QImaster, on 04/11/2008, -0/+0Its not solar power it's tidal power !
  Tidal movement runs 24/7
bmilleker, on 04/09/2008, -0/+1fluid karma ftw
caponumen, on 04/09/2008, -1/+1Hmm, still lots of problems and a clear danger to sea life.
Probably economically infeasible on a large scale.
Need a year or two of run time to decide if it's gonna sink or swim......
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World’s Largest Tidal Turbine Successfully Installed

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