Scotland Touts Tidal Energy As The Renewable Of The Future

Scotland's Tidal Energy Future: Producing 70% of its electricity from renewable resources last year, Scotland is striving to become 100% powered by renewables by 2020. It is now implementing the world's largest planned tidal project.

"Once they get this 150 tonne turbine into the water, this entire thing will swivel with the tide, four times a day, generating about enough power for 1000 homes." Eddie Scott is overseeing the instalment of turbines 100 feet underwater for Simec Atlantis Energy, the leaders of Scotland's MeyGen project to develop tidal power. Unlike wind turbines, these generators will capture energy from the regular tidal currents off Scotland's coast. "That's the real advantage of tidal energy: it's very, very predictable", says Eddie. An EU-subsidised project will test the MeyGen turbines, but Brexit could stall the process. However, the SAE is determined to persevere. "When it's fully done you're talking more than a quarter of a million homes that can benefit from the power that's generated", says SAE's CEO Tim Cornelius.

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[jackasshomey]

cool thing about these tidal turbines is the fact that they can use Extremely High Torque Low RPM permanent magnet motors since water is 784 times denser then air its has much more force behind it and can move much heavier objects

[harvrem]

If we take Denmark as a example of green energy, which is mostly wind turbines, they chose to invest far before the technology was economical, but now they are world leaders in wind technology, so my point is investing in tidal energy at this point is a must, with predictable tides for years to come,

[thenobalnacho]

This seems like a no brainer for coastal countries

[guccigoldberg]

We’d only need 27, 083 to power every home in Britain


That’s not sarcasm that’s surprisingly low

[dougmc]

Because the tide is so regular this would require a minimum amount of storage to act as baseload power.

[alexarcano]

Majority of Scotland's power now comes from renewables, wind turbines alone produced (at peak) 109% power requirements for Scotland.

[kramrle]

According to a report by the IMF in 2015, fossile energies receives an annual subsidy of roughly 3500 bn USD !
Cut that subsidy and renewable is competitive.

[silentsnooc]

2021 is going to be (another) important year for Simec Atlantis but I'm not gonna lie: Being a shareholder of this company was not very enjoyable so far. XD

[oroazul]

It's taken almost half a century for this to get started. The oceans are the only source of renewable energy with the potential to power the world, about time! Thanks to all concerned.

[josoapification]

We had one of these type of turbines 15 years ago placed at the tidal mouth of strangford lough in Northern Ireland but it was removed for environmental reasons mainly for the safety of marine mammals the area is a protected nature reserve

[ewaste]

I hate the dumbing down of talking about "homes" being powered, it isn't a useful measure of energy production.

Each turbine apparently has a nameplate capacity of 1.5MW so you'd need 1100 of them to match the nameplate capacity of one EPR Reactor.

Capacity factor is around 40% and more predictable vs around 30% for wind in Scotland, Nuclear is typically >80%.

[johnleung]

Texas 's electric bill is lowest among the States because of using a lot of wind power!

[thelastdruidofscotland]

a planned 2, 500 tidal turbine project was cancelled by the uk government recently, it would have created 10, 000 jobs during the construction phase, however, despite Westminster removing key factors like the green subsidy, investment in the green sector has continued within Scotland, primarily due the SNP and EU support, it is vital for the sector, and the Scottish Government will capitalise on the fact that sub sea power cables now connect us to the south of England, and now already send power to that region, earning hundreds of millions of pounds a year for the generators, Scotlands potential has been estimated at around £8-£10 Billion in tax a year, thats around 5 times what oil brings in, so its vital for that investment to continue.

[ctmorrison]

I never cease to be amazed that energy is so hard to store seems it runs through our fingers like sand, batteries seem so primitive. we are surrounded by energy almost unlimited, clean and free, yet we are beggared by its cost

[HondaMechanic]

This maybe the first in Europe, but Nova Scotia has a water turbine in the Bay of Fundy ..

[mrdeurknopp]

11:15 I might have to wait 300 years for a 200 year storm to come along...

[dba]

"This 150 tonne turban"

Ey?

[corporalpunishment]

Why do they always say it can power 100k homes, how much power is that? Tell us in Mw hours instead of telling us in bullshit.

[brynstarkiller]

As an island nation this is a no brainier

[turevedin]

Anyone interested in this should check out Minesto and their Deep Green project. It could potentially make tidal energy much cheaper by using much less material