Yes. [10:40] Beth Scott (marine ecologist) argues it's damaging to marine life but WAY MUCH better still when compared to climate change. She would know better then me. I say yes it should be used part of the mix from her interview.
I hate how we point out slightest ecological problem when it comes to any renewable energy source but conveniently forgot that what we have now is devastating whole planet. It's like discussing what type of extinguisher will corrode door handles the least while whole building is on fire.
The environmental impact might nit be as slight as you make it out to be and the reason why it is not done might be because simply better solutions might exist, but as a general sentiment you are right.
Based. Though it's a good mindset to keep refining our solutions, rather than thinking that we have the perfect answers on the first pass. Sustainability needs action, but it's still a marathon - not a sprint.
Its really not just a slight impact. If the ecology of out environments change too much it will huge impact on our lives. And putting dams or wind turbines or solar fars really does impact local wildlife. This is really the massive advantage of nuclear power.
Thank you for being transparent about the real environmental, ecological and operational cost impact when talking renewable. Very rare indeed…others tend to overpromise and oversimplify the issue
Hi Mohd Amin Ishak, Thanks so much! Don't forget to hit the subscribe button - our next video comes out next week Friday. Meanwhile, take a look at our other Planet A videos on renewable energy: "Geothermal energy is renewable and powerful. Why is most of it untapped?" - th-cam.com/video/c7dy0hUZ9xI/w-d-xo.html "How green is solar energy really?" - th-cam.com/video/EWV4e453y8Y/w-d-xo.html Let us know what you think. 🙂
I can't believe that I'm nearly 40 and never realized that high-tide and low-tide is us moving around the tidal bulge zone - like how sunrise and sunset is us moving past the sun.
It’s been a while since I’ve looked things up on tidal power, but I think there was concerns about marine life being affected by the spinning propellers, things like sharks and rays that are attracted to electrical fields, and possible pollution from leaking components.
That's not even half the problem. If, like the description of the video states, we used enough of these machines to capture enough energy to power the entirety of the US twice over, then there is no doubt we'd disrupt ocean currents, which, in turn, would destroy vital atmospheric weather patterns. Imagine having to study why El Nino/La Nina disappeared, and finding out it's because of a bunch of giant fidget spinners under the water.
AS I recall, one of the problems that they had in the Bay of Fundy (in addition to issues with fish, seals, etc.) was that the tidal forces are so strong that the experimental units just disappear - they are torn out of the bottom of the bay and swept away.
@@johnwade1095 you capture the energy at low rpm and high torque, then convert it to higher rpm using a gearbox, connected to a generator (in a secure location)?; This is mostly important because, to achieve decent angular velocity in turbine blades, your would have the tips of the turbines moving at WAY too high velocities!
@@johnwade1095 I suppose that this is why the more current solutions, such as the O2 Orbital turbine do exactly what I said. I guess I hadn't realised the context of the comment was with respect to OpenHydro's tech. ?
I would love to see some comparable numbers in Diagramms or similar. Some number which here for example compare investment costs and efficiency values. That would help me a lot. Keep it up, love your videos
Id love for the blades to be replaceable and the internal turbines to be 50 or more years of durability and bio foul resistant. Im thinking like a model airplane. The main body should be preserved but just replace the propellers and wings. Also due to it being in the water. It should be easier to replace a large blade compared to the long-term maintenance of a fleet of wind turbines. (Idk, because i saw so many in California. And I'm just wondering when they all meet their end of life around the same time frame how that's going to be addressed, at least sea maintenance should be a lot easier than land maintenance, due to cargo ship can float more materials to be on stand by. (If its far enough from the cities)) Or maybe there needs to be a way to domesticate a barnacle eater and other predators of biofouling species. Even the shipping industries would love that, if only they could eat the dang things fast enough to offset the down time.
They’ll never do that because Tidal is far from being economically viable. I highly recommend David McKay on Tidal. His book(free online) cover the fallacy of tidal energy.
@@Brandon_letsgo I mean the reality is all green energy as a fallacy by the mere fact that it is not financially possible because of companies that actually work against it if it wasn't so damn expensive I feel they could have made it far more economically friendly more eco-friendly and more scientifically possible to advance if it didn't cost an entire city
Fun fact. My dad was one off the supervisors for the original Tidal power project in Hammerfest (Norway). (Specifically in Kvalsund) They look like small underwater wind mills
I used to fish off the little pier below that bridge. I was always deadly scared of potentially getting my line snagged in one of the turbines, little did I know this was virtually impossible.
One thing not mentioned in this video in regards to marine life is the production of electricity and resulting change in magnetic field characteristics around the turbines. Lots of fish can detect magnetic and electric signals from quite a distance. Putting some extra sources of magnetic field in the ocean could potentially disrupt the ability of these animals to navigate.
@@jacktaylor8195 Yeah, what are they still doing in the ocean anyway? Much like moths using stars, bats using high frequencies, that kind of evolution won't happen in our lifetime. If at all.
What they're not telling people is that the average energy content of the tides per unit area of ocean is extremely small, far too small to do anything useful with. Only in a very few places in the world are the tides strong enough to get useful amounts of energy out, and even then, it turns out you don't get much electricity. Yes the French plant produces 250 MW, but what they don't tell you is that that's the peak output. Most of the time it sits there doing nothing, and only produces the 250 MW briefly near high and low tide. The rest of the time it generates nothing. As for tidal flow, that demonstration plant is installed in the Orkney islands, which have the strongest tidal flows in the world. it generates a whopping 2 MW (peak), one 15,000th of the UK's average demand for electricity. Put it anywhere else and it won't generate as much electricity, in fact in most places it'll generate nothing at all, apart from higher bills for the electricity consumers forced to pay for this nonsense.
In 1970’s at university we talked about harnessing the Nova Scotia’s Bay of Fundy tidal currents. Eventually permanent turbines were put in. The tides wrecked the machines and they were removed.
A guy I know (PhD from UMIST and various engineering patents) had a concept for using tidal turbines in the British Channel. He'd conceived a innovative design to compensate for the tide turning and for minimum maintenance to the moving parts and no need for complicated systems. Very simple/effective. I illustrated the visuals and he proposed it to the UK Govt (the then Dept of Energy) with semi-detailed plans and he wanted nothing for it as he'd made his money and was semi-retired) but the Govt couldn't take concepts to design themselves - they needed him to develop the business, create prototypes, etc. Plus the environmental lobby opposed any bankside development on the Severn. It was interesting to see the Dept of Energy release an article in the Times about a year later, with drawings very similar to mine but they'd misinterpreted some areas and created a more complex but less efficient design that would cost times as much. Always wondered if it was a missed opportunity as UK waters are nothing but tidal? 🤔
I think I know the design you are talking about. The issue with the UK government is they talk the talk but mostly don't walk the walk. They prefer ready solutions over developing them for at least the past 30 years. The evidence is the attention paid to developing technologies for the NHS, where they suggested a unified IT system, then waited for individual trusts to develop something and ended up buying programs from the US. However the systems didn't work well as the NHS had different needs and its taken years to adapt it to an ideal state. That said, it's still not ideal as it's not connected across the country but varies from trust to trust 🤷 They want the benefits without the risks 😆 and considering how risk adverse our recent politicians it makes total sense the rest of the government departments follow suit.
I live on the shore of Minas Basin, an arm of the Bay of Fundy. We have the world’s highest tides (with a range between 8 and 18 meters) and tidal power has been discussed here for a very long time. The 1 Canadian plant that you mention is further down the Bay of Fundy, it’s in fact a dam in one of the rivers feeding into the Bay. It opened around the same time as La Rance but stopped operating 3 years ago. The renewed in-stream tidal power initiative started about 15 years ago. The Government built an interpretive Center at the site where a tailor-made cable from three turbine locations comes ashore. A donut-shaped turbine was installed twice and both times failed within days. And then couldn’t be removed because of the strength of the currents. We are nowhere near even a pilot project after all these years. In addition, the fishing community is dead against it, causing endless delays. There have been much better successes around Shetland and Orkney. I’d love to see more progress here but I don’t have much hope
@@mrdaury5 - I don't have any idea whether Parrsboro was good choice or not but I really believe the Fundy Tides are a treasure trove of renewable power. Like the video said though - expense, developing tech and lack of a local market make the area a long shot right now. Trial aquatic turbines placed in the Bay literally had their rotors destroyed; such was the power of the water. There are some energy comparisons I've heard before about the comparison of the energy in each tide in the Bay being equivalent to some crazy number of nuclear bombs (funny how we always compare energy to them - rolls eyes). But still - future potential. (just hope ACOA doesn't fund any such ventures - if you're a Maritimer, you'll get it - lol)
@@pboyd4278 At mid tide, the flow of the current is that of all the world's rivers and streams combined. Crazy powerful. And I am a maritimer! Been a tour guide rafting on the Shubenacadie River for 6 years now.
For an island that has such a coastline as England, Wales and Scotland, I can only imagine that successive Governments' indifference and anti-lobbying from coal and then gas interests have had their play. I remember the subject being discussed back in the 1960s.
A hydraulic arm connected to a float is a much less invasive approach to collecting energy from changing tide levels. All the machinery involved is above water where humans may maintain it and no moving parts underwater to harm wildlife. Edited for spelling
One aspect comes to mind, modern cruise ships use large diesel electric pots for propulsion. So lot of R&D is done already and there is a manufacturing chain in place, how hard would it be to adopt those for tidal power ?
Good question! If you'd like to know more about the topic we've added some additional links for further reading. It's in the description, just click the "show more" button :)
0:25 is that globally we could provide energy to the United States twice over. Or the United States has access to enough coastal regions to power itself twice over? There’s a huge difference. I’d change my career based on the answer.
Hey, great question. The answer is globally :) Some calculations say that if we harness the power of ALL tides around the world, we could generate more power than global capacity at the moment, but this number I quoted is the practical/economically viable estimate.
Think US tides are relatively minor, however if you consider Canada's east coast than you have huge potential with 14m tides in some areas and big bays.
Be careful. Figures like that usually have been stretched extremely to prove the authors opinion. It's even unclear if it's calculated based on primary energy or electrical energy. So the numbers as they are aren't worth the paper they are written on ;)
I think its estimated on volumen and mass of the water involved in tides. But to lock all that into usable electricity is impossible (or not yet and hope it never be because biolife diversity etc.) But I hope some good part of it will be used on sustainable way... (sorry my English is not the best)
@@petergoestohollywood382 as I understand it for the Swansea lagoon project in Wales a minimum concrete would used. About the same as a large housing development. Most of the walls are surrounded by quarried local stone.
Like wind turbines, tidal turbines could provide some power, but at what cost? I'm not talking about the material cost, but the collateral costs like killing thousands of birds and fish. Most people are like "that doesn't matter so long as I get some electricity", but at the same time "want to save the planet".
And Yet, ships use huge moving metal parts under water constantly and still run profitable . 🤷 A ship screw shouldnt be that different from a water Turbine. The animation showing the virtual fish get slapped by the turbine worries me a lil ..😆 Tho i think solutions for less dangerous ways of using that huge volume of water moving can be designed. 🤔
@@NewPipeFTW Ships have the advantage of moving quite fast, which helps to keep the hull and propellers clean, but, inspite of that, all ships must visit dry docs and undergo hull cleaning to get rid of barnacles and other nasty stuff that builds up on the hull. And they run profitable due to scale. If you could build a turbine the size of a cargo ship then perhaps it would out perform wind turbines. The ocean still is a harsh environment, and if engineers can generate energy buy staying out of it...then they will. Just compare the difficulty of maintaining a solar panel VS under sea turbine. Anyone can clean a solar panel. To clean a turbine, you need a professional highly paid divers...who are in short supply already. To fix the turbines, you need even more rare breed of workers...undersea divers who are also engineers. Alternatively, you would have to detatch the turbine from the sea floor, carry it to a drydock, do the maintenance and re-install it. Im not saying that its impossible....just that its much more expensive.
@@UninstallingWindows Sure but think oil platforms for example are also a proofof concept. In the end its a cost/benefit assesment, yeah. Still nice to see that we have other scalable options in case wind or solar is unavailable. I could imagine places with less land/wind, where a underwater turbine that is accesible by boats is still more suited than other current power generation tech.
@@UninstallingWindows Truth is you don't know any of this, you are just guessing. Let the engineers involved handle this and stop spreading information white noise
Good review. Tidal dams are probably a really bad idea. They have to deal with silting up, marine animal displacement, they look bad, the carbon footprint of concrete etc. But the turbines appear to be much less invasive. Albeit the issues that were raised in the video with material selection, and marine life. Also, the fact that salt water and electrical/mechanical components don't mix.
Did you actually have any data about what you're talking about? Did you made any calculations? The concrete carbon footprint for example. After how much time would a tidal dam beat a gas plant of same power output even tho we spend so much carbon on the concrete? Also, wind turbines need a shitload of composite materials that cannot be recycled. What would be the cost of maintenance of a tidal turbine versus at wind turbine in term of CO2? Genuine questions as you sound like an expert............
@@MrPureBasic They weren't dismissing the idea completely, just expressing some doubts about it. Nothing is certain and every calculation is an estimate until put into practice. There's no need for insults also
Way back, like 20 years or so, some people had the idea to combine our German off shore wind farms with hydro power. Was swiftly swept under the rug, never heard of it again, except if people either laughed about it or had fear for the fish, which would inevitably chopped to pieces, by their perception. Water power is heftily slowed down here in Germany because of the fisher men guilds and such fear for the fish, which they can't fish anymore. Okay, that's mainly for rivers and such, but for the off shore parks there were mainly environmentalists, that fought beside big oil to prevent any further development. One to protect the marine life, the other to protect their profits... We have too many people with a 'what if? mindset here as well, who fear change.
The Dairy farmer I know didn't think "what if" before agreeing to install a wind farm on the family property. The first year, half of the herd either stopped producing milk or gave milk that was unfit for consumption. Now, forget the little fish, consider what happens when a shark, dolphin, or whale collides with a turbine blade. Dead generator and dead swimmer. It's not if, it's when.
I find these types of projects fascinating however if it was my choice I would be more interested in using these machines to power colonies on other planets. For anything else I fully support nuclear. We can continue the efforts to keep the process safe (relatively) and continue research on the uses of daughter isotopes and other programs, I feel it has limitless potential. We already have ways of utilizing plutonium and other elements and isotopes produced by uranium 235 plants.
We had tidal turbines here in Nova Scotia where we have the biggest/strongest tides in the world. But the companies trying to install them eventually went bankrupt, they also harmed a whole bunch of marine life.
@@earlysda I don't really agree with that. They're not perfect, they still do harm but they are better than fossil fuels. The coal plants along the ocean here suck up marine life too.
Hi, I started watching this as I spotted the animation of the Nova turbines that I produced (I'm used to having my work ripped and re-edited on YT). But I have to admit that this is an excellent video. Easy to follow and well written/produced. A really nice piece of work.
I just binge watched old videos from your channel. Learned somethinf from your recycling videos and Catalysis. Your animations are incredibly simple yet so fun to watch!
If you see the tide in north west Australia is amazing, the 11m at sanctuary Cove and related flow is stunning. Unfortunately low population in that area however Derby and Broome could benefit.
Tide is a weak source of power albeit fairly predictable. However maintenace is a large cost on any marine equipment. It also has two times that power will drop to nothing. The other really problematical issues with tidal (or wave) is that they are asynchronous meaning they cannot modulate as demand fluctuates, this eliminates their large scale use. They are also low in inertia another characteristic that keeps the grid stable. On the face of it a source ofenergy but it is not anywhere as good as it looks.
Gary, it is lethargic. That is why some tidal generators use barriers to increase velocity and trade it for constant flow. Predictable but that does not mean that it n
Gary, to continue, it does not help if it doesn't coincide with demand. You cannot have agrid that supply and demand do not match at all times. Therefore renewables can never replace conventional generation, it simply cannot work. Batteries are no answer. It is living in a dream world to believe that low intensity and uncontrollable generation can supply our requirements.
Gary, I live in the U.K. Take off your rose tinted glasses and look at things from a realistic technical viewpoint. Renewables, which include biomass (This significantly flatters the total renewable contribution as it is fairly consistent 365 days a year. It is also synchronous (although it doesn't run as such, it can) and has inertia. Take fossil fuels away and replace them with wind and solar and the grid will trip. No ifs or buts, and it will take days if not weeks to restore and it still will be unstable. Renewables cannot start a dead grid. Balancing costs are rising in tandem with the increase of renewables as are electricity unit costs. This is the behind the scenes and never reported in the media as such. They report Drax had to restart one of it's coal plants but not why. Not only is it not possible it is fiscally iresponsible to build such a large capacity of an uncontrollable and expensive source of generation with a relatively short life so they will need replacing more often.
Gary, yes I have and for very good reasons. Balance demand to generation, you have to not looked at that realistically. Particularly as wind is so volatile in output with respect to wind speed. Drax was paid £4000 per Megawatt for this 'last watt'. The simple fact is that we are streched as far as availabiliy of reliable capacity . You don't say in what discipline your engineering is , mine is power generation.
Funny fact: As a kid growing up sea side in the Netherlands, I used to fantasize about such a concept, as the perpetual ebb and flow would generate near constant energy apart from the moment when the tide is dead/slack. A power plant could be built on an artificial island and constructed in such a way that it could also provide an ecological benefit to marine and bird life both migratory and stationary (reefs, tidal marshes, dunes, sand flats), as well as it roof surface covered in solar cells for the added benefit of solar power (and who knows even redesigned wind turbines that are less obtrusive to the landscape). In the Netherlands the Maasvlakte industrial area near Rotterdam Seaport is a good example of how land was claimed from the sea, and the Marker Wadden project in the IJsselmeer as a beautiful example of artificial islands that created an ecological environmental explosion of wildlife and plant life in an area that was virtually ‘dead’.
If you lower the speed of flow of water (by putting in a turbine) more sand will sink to the seafloor. It could be a nice way of reclaiming land from the sea I guess, if that is a goal. The Waddenzee would clog up in no time if you put turbines in it. A few years of "free energy" and you could walk to Ameland at high tide if you ask me.
@@RDJ2 sure, and if we build too many wind turbines, they'll stop the Northwind, lol! I think you greatly underestimate the vast amounts of energy that's in the tides and how tiny of a fraction we would need to remove from them in order to satisfy our energy needs.
@@LRM12o8 wind turbines do notably lower wind speeds. If you do that in water, sand will sink down. You probably have no idea what the Waddenzee is, it's already clogging up. Lowering water speed will mean more sand sinks down. I think you overestimate how much you can take away before balance is disturbed.
@@RDJ2 you mean das Wattenmeer north of Germany, between Denmark and the Netherlands? Of course I know what it is, I've been there! ^^ Since you've made this claim, do you kbow any studies that show the wind slowing down because of wind turbines (not because of global warming)? Those wind turbines are tiny compared to the sky, like a spec of dust to the human eye. I don't believe neither they, nor the tidal turbines can be anything more than a drop of water in the ocean.
@@LRM12o8 locally they can make quite a difference, you won't change the gulfstream but something like the Waddenzee would clog faster than it's already doing. Locally wind drops after a windpark, it takes tens of kms to pick back up. On a global scale it's irrelevant but my example was local.
I'm surprised that transportation and storage of energy was completely skipped. Tidal energy is great for the coasts, but all land locked cities are going to need some other energy alternative. I was hoping they would talk about energy loss over vast distances, how many batteries would be needed to store this energy, what chemicals are used in the manufacture of batteries, and the waste/lifespan of said batteries. It is disturbing to me that when alternative energy is talked about these are very important and are never mentioned!
Because this video wasn't about the batteries? And they do mention that the zones where this can be used are usually less populated as an issue. Also, the predictability factor can reduce the amount of batteries needed. In cases of other sources you have to gather as much power as you can while there is supply (sun, wind) and you would use high capacity batteries for that. Here you should be able to greatly downsize those. That said, haven't they started using mechanical means to store power (eg. flywheels)?
Dams are essentially batteries, and nuclear is a way more solid option overall. Its true that these “innovations” always solve all their “problems” with “just more batteries”
I wrote a paper on tidal/wave energy my sophmore year of undergrad, I'm glad you made this! The Ocean is such an underrated renewable energy source and wave energy should be so widely funded and implemented in places like California, Portugal, Alaska, and even Australia, Russia, and much of South America.
Wave energy is.... A non starter. Tidal is epic. If we asked people tidal or nuclear, what is the choice? Costs billions, produces millions and costs trillions to clean up after. Tidal is perfect unless you ask conservation critics that are often from outside the area.
The problem with tidal power with systems fixed to the sea floor is they recently discovered that the tide moves boulders the size of houses around the sea floor. These boulders would smash such systems. And secondly stuff grows on turbines in the sea that need cleaning. Tidal undoubtedly works but is expensive.
Tidal zones are important zones for fish migration and lots of marine mammals… are they safe? How would this impact fishing? I suspect the two are not compatible. Offshore wind farms encourage fish biomass and can be fished.. I don’t see how a dpiing blade under water could allow fishing.
Mumbai's Worly-sea-link bridge can have the largest tidal power plant in India. Will have to weigh in environmental cost vs production capacity trade-off.
Also willingness to invest that much with a bit of a slower return of invest. Unfortunately at the moment they focus on the return of Invest for next year, which is going to be not that huge compared to gas power ...
Being later or you have realized the value . Still l remember the first innovative modle created with tidal power establishment 3 decades ago in my motherland by a 12-14 years old school child in a zonal level innovative exhibition. Honestly very few amount of people even pay attention over his great unique mechanism involved .
That's not true at all. It doesn't work. Salt water is highly corrosive and the wildlife will jam up those turbines. This is feel good science without a realistic budget
there are a lot of factual information that is just blurted out by Rajagopal, it would be great if we could get the sources to these factual statements, I acknowledge that this isn't a academic paper or a report. But showing audience the specific statement of facts/ quoting the specific source, would add to the credibility of the video.
One other thing no one has taken into account about using tidal power to create electricity is electromagnetic fields created from the high voltage wires connecting these turbines to their inland connections. How will EM fields affect fish and such?
The Patagonian tides are ideal for this type of implementation, I would love for the DW to analyze the potential of the Patagonian tides for the implementation of this technology.
lastima que en la patagonia no vive nadie y mover la energia a el norte es costoso e ineficiente. pero si podria ser una buena semilla para fomentar la descentralizacion del pais y que mas gente viva en l patagonia, que ademas es muy bella
This sounds great and i've frequently thought about it, the points brought up in this video are all fair and justified though i'm just missing 1 potential problem, and that's noise. It's a well known fact that marine life is disturbed by the sounds caused by freight liners and what not, so i'm curious on the sound output of these turbines and the effects of it on local wildlife given that it's placed relatively closely to the shores.
I'm pretty sure that is what was meant by displacement at 10:22 They didn't go into detail just concluded that the worst estimates are still better than the effect climate change will have.
They do give off a sound or vibration that fish fo avoid. My family has a fishing business ,and the turbine that was left on the bottom in the bay of fundy in eastern Canada, has caused a lot of fish to change their migration path. The volume of fish in that area has decreased significantly. The worst part is the amount money that was sunk into the project and the company went bankrupt. It sits rotating on the ocean floor producing nothing and rotting away.
@@rosaschlupfer635 estimates concluded by people, people make mistakes, people have motives and biases, and instead of focusing on more permanent solutions like changing the wasteful aspects of culture, we would rather find new temporary ways to leave the lights on when nobody's home.
I've been asking this for years. Why go with unreliable wind when we have huge untapped reliable tides all along our coastline. There is no issue with slack tide or no movement because that high or low tide moment happens at different points along the coast . You only need to be a few miles away from each other and you would avoid that deadspot.
You wanna know? Cost, its not economical. Corrosion, its frikin Salt water! Google a picture of a old windmill and u will see how beat up those are. Now imagine the same but 100 times worse.
@Stein Mauer ... I did watch the video. Lots of places along the east coast where the sand banks funnel currents. We are an island after all. I sail past the wind farms already there and more are planned. One of the reasons gas reserves are low now is because wind let us down last summer. Its true tidal likely to be a bit more expensive than wind until used at scale but not x 5 if comparing off shore wind with tidal generators. And it is vastly cheaper than nuclear.
I’m kind of glad we didn’t, if we globally jumped into it 30-50 years ago we would have destroyed so many rivers and ecosystems that way, but the other way wasn’t much better. Technology increases so fast I’m sure we will see more eco friendly water turbines in the future and I’m excited for it. Clean renewables and nuclear is the future.
@@jcakblade101 I do recognise that. I canoe and sail these waterways. But how much damage are we doing endlessly relying on gas, which all come from Russia.
I had my senior year undergraduate thesis on renewable energy and the most intriguing solutions I found were these ocean turbines and the molten salt turbine found in China and Las Vegas. The biggest problem is the cost to output ratio is pretty severe so these types of electrical solutions are just too expensive at the moment but are really cool solutions when they are cost efficient.
Intersting , my Q have these costs been compared to the costs of oil rigs that drill in the ocean bottoms , just seems that those oil rigs costs would be enormous ?? …curious
I have thought about this stuff and I reckon maitenance will be the biggest cost (and a nightmare). Maybe a design where only the blades enter the water, making it easier to maintain. And the electronics and mechanics are above the water.
Id say that would goof up the actual fluid dynamics as the thing would be quite top heavy and constantly going up and down, a lot more to count into to harvest the same energy, but hey maybe its a better solution, better than a big ass oil rig.
Dear Aditi Rajagopal: Thank you. Im looking to get into school for renewable energy. Thank you for this very informational & very well made video, this information is greatly appreciated. You helped me understand a new topic deeply and quickly. You and tour team are some of the best out there, please keep being you! You may not realize the impact now, but you all are changing the world for real!
You're most welcome. We are very glad to hear and hope you get into the school. Please subscribe to our channel for new videos on environment every Friday! 🍀
I’ve always thought that one way of harnessing bodies of water into electricity (be it the sea, lakes, or rivers) is to make holes at the bottom of the body of water, the deeper the better because it increases water pressure. Then a tube would connect the hole at the bottom of the sea at 100 meters for example (or ten atmospheres of pressure) to another hole at the surface. There would be a great negative pressure whereby the water would flow upwards towards the surface. Then that water pressure would turn turbines at high speeds, producing electricity just like a regular dam would, except that that particular water dam wouldn’t be located at an artificial reservoir but could be at the sea or lake for that matter.
pressure only depends on the height of the water column, if you put a tube in the sea, the water will not start flowing out so if you have two fish tanks of the same height but different width and length, the pressure at the bottom is the same however, your solution can work but not in the way you expect it it is possible to exploit the temperature difference between surface water and seafloor water to produce energy, through stirling generator or else so you just pipe water from the seabed to a power plant at the surface
Your idea is mine too. I thought im the only one thought about it. But you my friend you can not do that becoz the tube where the water exit will level up with the sea level thus no more moving force to move the turbine. Unless we used pump to maintain the negative water level whre the water exit from above .
Unless you have a background in some sort of grid management or operations it can be quite unclear how small the production from the non-range tidal power can be. A whole ship, manned with a few people to produce 2 MW? That's less than one industrial generator and requires so much maintenance and operational costs.
The biggest offshore wind turbines, that are much larger than ships, barely go over 10 MW. Of course the production from a single unit is small, because this is an inherently poor quality dilute energy source. It's not going to power the world, ever. It's just toy projects to entertain people with.
@@VinylUnboxings It inherently has the same properties at the small scale as at the large scale because individual generators are small. It's not like thermal power plants where a 1 GW plant is much more economical per unit energy than a 1 MW plant. So the system and economic properties will be the same at any scale as now. And they are not good for large scale grid power production. So they won't be at any larger scale either.
Are there any designs that involve using the power of a huge float(like a barge size) that moves up and down with the tide geared to turn a turbine? That would solve a lot of problems because the machinery can stay out of the water. The floats would be low maintenance and the only thing in the water.
Thanks you for an excellent informative and balanced presentation. We in the UK are blessed with large tidal ranges and flows that go right around our islands at different times leading to potential 24hr production of energy, we need to be spending a lot more of our energy research budget into tidal stream ideas. The benefits for us as a country long term compared to other sources of power are incredible.
First question that comes to mind: do tides have a purpose regarding flow of minerals, food for aquatic life and such? If yes, should we interfere with a big generator?
The flow is still there. It’s not that the blades rotate fast enough to chop nekton like the windmills are doing with the birds, although much less than people think.
@@DinoAlberini The impact of wind turbines on bird populations has been greatly exaggerated. Yes it has some impact, like every single human structure ever built. But the fact is birds are killed in the billions by human structures every year. Wind turbines are only a small fraction of this.
The sea is incredibly powerful. Unfortunately, that destructive power means that even a tidal barrier would have to be largely rebuilt every 30 years to maintain it in working order. A metal tidal stream turbine in the open ocean would last even less time. This is the Achilles heel of all renewable projects. The upfront capital costs and constant maintenance are very large even if the actual energy input from wind, sea or sun is free.
Reminds me of an out-of-print/discontinued book I bought back in the '80's. Was about the history of recycling and minimum environmental impact engineering. A particular European country during the 1930's had plans to install similar submerged generators at optimal locations in the Mediterranean. The projected output from the proposed project was immense.
Pretty good vid. Green energy isn't actually green, as we know. I wish I could remember who spoke of it, but a lot of folks think we have a power production problem when we really just have a power usage problem. The answer isn't producing more types of green energy, it's using less energy and living closer to the environment.
This is a really well constructed video, I learned a lot from it thank you. I love in Wales and I knew about the Swansea barrage which has been a 'project' as long as I can remember which seemingly always gets cancelled, but the point on the map that you showed in this video didn't look like Swansea, it looked closer to Cardiff - is that a new project?
That's the details that will derail this kind of project before it starts. It's all feel good science not based in reality. Salt water is extremely corrosive, the wildlife will destroy these turbines in a year to two years unless they have constant maintenance
Kinda crazy to think about the fact that technically with Tidal power you are actually taking energy away from the moon orbit and making it closer to us. I realize the amount of energy we would remove would be relatively minicule. Practically nothing. But a interesting thought none the less
I really hope this is actually A new solution to cleaner energy. I can tell you first hand that more often than not the new green technologies vastly overestimate electrical output and likewise underestimate environmental cost. I completed 2 solar farms in south Georgia as an industrial electrician. The output was suppose to power roughly 60,000 homes a year. Turns out that number was drastically lower. Like 8,000 homes was a lot closer and thats the median range. Now if we talk about consecutive days of overcast weather that number drastically reduces and more often than not would leave a lot of homes without power for several days in month. I am all about replacing our current power production if its a viable solution that won’t leave people freezing in the winter or having heat stroke in the summer. But I have extensively looked into the new green energies including electric vehicles and I can tell you that currently there are no real viable solutions that would not grossly shoot electrical energy through the roof. Your power bill would go from say $300 or so a month to probably $600 or so.
Nuclear is all we have right now. The other stuff are not worth the squeeze. We add 88 million people to the world every year too and they say energy won’t peak like about 2035. And if they are using the same methodology for carbon capture tech that doesn’t exist yet who knows when it in actuality peaks.
Thank you for such an informative comment, Michael. It is indeed a really complex matter, but one we are trying to unpack. We try do so each week. Feel free to hit the subscribe button if you'd like to know more about how we can save our planet.
Thanks for your comment. We have already wondered if we need nuclear power to stop climate change. You can watch the video here: th-cam.com/video/9X00al1FsjM/w-d-xo.html&ab_channel=DWPlanetA
As Amanda Smith so kindly explains in our video around 7:30 min in, engineering underwater usually brings its own set of unique challenges, one being biofouling (8:00 min).
@@DWPlanetA Talking about it doesnt make it go away. Not to mention the fact it chops up fish, interferes with tidal streams, and the ecology, and is also intermittent. Lets face it, if it worked, it would have been used. And dont say 'Rance', thats one project, that has never been repeated. I wonder why.....
i find it fascinating, that with tidal, we are basically tapping into an external energy source: the gravity of moon and sun. Tidal could be built 3 dimensional, other than wind energy.
With it you're braking this huge tidal wave leading to non energy at all one day. This is not a solution that lasts forever. It has an impact on Earth's rotation as well. You cannot equip the entire ocean with these things.
@@lampexxl8599 No way Jose. the ocean mass alone that is in move here, we barely have any effect at all on it. plus, as i said, it's basically agitated by the sun and moon - the amount we can possibly take out of the system is absolutely miniscule.
I feel like putting a type of these turbines in certain rivers might be more environmentally friendly than dams, (although without the benefit of flood control and controllable release)
You can, and it is. However you need FAST moving water, which most rivers aren't. What most people believe are fast moving rivers, are about 1/3 of what you'd want. Even then, if you could replace that device with a dam a foot tall you'd get way more port. Physics is heartless sometimes.
I was reading recently that if dams were built in a staggered formation so that each part only stuck out ~25% into the river then a lot of the environmental impacts are actually avoided. I’m interested to find an example of where it’s been actually done though.
Rivers are too shallow. The rivers deep enough are still too shallow as there are boats that need navigable waters and not a giant fan sitting just below the bow line. Also, Rivers rise and fall with the tide.
I drew a design that used giant floats to turn geared down turbines in theory it could work with waves also. It would be similar to the system shown except the mechanism would function off the up and down movement of massive platform with turbines on the legs. The advantage would be that the turbines would not have to be submerged, thus reducing wear and damage due to salt water and sand in the water
Not to mention it should be easier to maintain and get new parts to. Still like some of the other comments. There is still the issue of energy loss over distance. Where landlocked countries and states(in the case of the USA). Meaning they need to figure something out for storage. Or a different source of power
@@rignatetris4435 There's been some developments there luckily, governments in Canada and Germany have begun the planning stages of renewable energy projects for production of hydrogen, stored as ammonia. The ammonia/hydrogen would be a liquid battery of sorts and will likely be used to support hydrogen fuel cell car economy with Europe switching away from ICE cars.
Between the massive amount of resources needed to create the turbines, the maintenance, the disruption to natural ecosystems and the fact that there are so few places where there is sufficient tidal flux to make this even remotely viable for production and even then it would only hope to work for coastal cities near to those high-flux areas.
I actually disagree, resources needed are not that great, if you use suspended system your impact is minimal. There are areas were tidal movement are massive. There are areas where sea currants are fast . I would even state that number of bays can be used like San Francisco Bay
@@jantschierschky3461 By resources needed, that is referring to the amount of resources needed versus electricity generated compared to other media. There is also the impact on shipping to be considered for bay areas, as any sufficiently large turbines can be hazardous to, or experience hazard from, heavy tankers of sufficient displacement, which would limit viable placement even further.
@@AximandTheCursed well if you consider the energy and placement I doubt you have issues in that regard, if we take SF as an example the shipping lane is on the northern end, the current on the southern end is over 3m/S that could produce around 6MW on my basic calculations using modified seapots. Also bay under the golden gate is over 100m well below any ships draft, so if you consider 3-4m/S you could produce 80-100MW
@@jantschierschky3461 ...and with the same amount of resources you could have a 1GW nuclear plant on a fraction of the land, cheaper and with lower maintenance overheads to boot. That's the point.
@@AximandTheCursed actually a nuclear plant is very expensive and takes ages to build. If nuclear I would choose block units. However storage is the key problem, because public perception. However if you consider the cost, productivity water turbines have a place
I don't imagine so. Saltwater eats everything at phenomenal rates. While the ocean has potential energy, I imagine the costs will be too high. Sealife is a concern too. In terms of total costs for installation and maintenance will be too expensive. Just ask any Navy.
This seems really promising but I really do worry about the capacity for these to ruin estuaries. These should be implemented more, but I don’t see how these are better than solar and thorium reactors.
They are not. Solar has to be the gradual creeper, covering the fields (literally) while we build out proper nuclear capacity, but nuclear **has** to be the focus.. yes they take longer but if we start building in bulk **now** we can literally be carbon-neutral by 2035.
New subscriber here. Marvelous exploration of the potential solutions to fulfill energy needs and the discussion around the advantages and disadvantages. Additionally, so happy to see excerpts from interviews with a range of scientists. These solutions could be applied to rivers...and I'm not talking about dams. Peace and health, everyone. Happy to be a member of the DW Planet A family.
@@DWPlanetA A lot of them actually... I like them because they are about current problems, are shorter and more direct. Your videos also have a good subtitle support, wich has to be considered if im showing this in class. I can tell you that "A platic wave" got some reactions. I am from Portugal btw. Keep it up!
I lived on the Gulf of Mexico for most of my life and I see it as being expensive to generate and maintain. With barnacles, electrolysis and salt water corrosion on the unit and cables servicing the units, it would be labor intensive on keeping everything working and not feasible. Salt water either drastically shortens the life of things or totally destroys lots of materials including steel, stainless steel, aluminum and barnacles destroys the rest. I know there are materials that resist seawater and living organisms but these materials are not proof but resistant. Coupled with electric cables, there will be tremendous problems on connections.
All these feel good ideas... they spend so much time talking about how great it is but barely talking about the difficulties... great ideas can be good but also impractical to implement. The biggets problem here isnt obtaining tidal power, its maintenance and distribution. Just wait till the EPA gets involved.
There’s enormous consistent energy in tidal forces. I’m curious about how much hydroelectric could be could be produced around canals or straits (where there’s a elevation difference in water levels). Of course many of these areas in the world are sparsely populated therefore efficient transmission is the dilemma.
Amazing video! Your explanations and montage are on point and you address every part which needs it. All the questions I had when clicking on the video and then while watching were answered. Thank you, subscribed!
If biofiling presents an operational costs - then it makes sense to have robotic solutions to auto -clear the growth - with cameras tech and robotic it can be set on auto
@@1lifeonearth may not seem like it at first, but the construction and maintenance of them can impede the ability of the surrounding wildlife to live properly. Yes, there is wildlife in open fields. They also can actually start messing with global wide air currents, believe it or not, which if not paid any attention could lead to catastrophic consequences.
@@trashmammal454 So, how do we prevent greedy corporation or career hungry person (like in Chernobyl)? Serious question here. Cause it is significantly hugh risk to the world than let say greedy solar/wind company.
Do you think that we should use more tidal energy?
I think we should go for the primary energies (gravitational force,nuclear force etc )
no
Yes. [10:40] Beth Scott (marine ecologist) argues it's damaging to marine life but WAY MUCH better still when compared to climate change. She would know better then me. I say yes it should be used part of the mix from her interview.
Most definitely
sure, so long as absolutely NO damage is done to the marine environment and its inhabitants
I hate how we point out slightest ecological problem when it comes to any renewable energy source but conveniently forgot that what we have now is devastating whole planet. It's like discussing what type of extinguisher will corrode door handles the least while whole building is on fire.
The environmental impact might nit be as slight as you make it out to be and the reason why it is not done might be because simply better solutions might exist, but as a general sentiment you are right.
They do mention this at the end of the video
You've been duped into believing that fossil fuels are bad for the planet.
Based. Though it's a good mindset to keep refining our solutions, rather than thinking that we have the perfect answers on the first pass. Sustainability needs action, but it's still a marathon - not a sprint.
Its really not just a slight impact. If the ecology of out environments change too much it will huge impact on our lives. And putting dams or wind turbines or solar fars really does impact local wildlife. This is really the massive advantage of nuclear power.
Thank you for being transparent about the real environmental, ecological and operational cost impact when talking renewable. Very rare indeed…others tend to overpromise and oversimplify the issue
Hi Mohd Amin Ishak,
Thanks so much! Don't forget to hit the subscribe button - our next video comes out next week Friday.
Meanwhile, take a look at our other Planet A videos on renewable energy:
"Geothermal energy is renewable and powerful. Why is most of it untapped?" - th-cam.com/video/c7dy0hUZ9xI/w-d-xo.html
"How green is solar energy really?" - th-cam.com/video/EWV4e453y8Y/w-d-xo.html
Let us know what you think. 🙂
Best solution is mix of renewables and nuclear. Nuclear where grid density justifies it. Renewables where population density is smaller.
@@kamilpotato3764 I want a Dyson sphere, personally.
@@kamilpotato3764 *German denuclearization intensifies*
@@chrisss3749 biggest mistake of German government...
I can't believe that I'm nearly 40 and never realized that high-tide and low-tide is us moving around the tidal bulge zone - like how sunrise and sunset is us moving past the sun.
same here. 🤯
I sugest you read more about tidal buldge
You better figure it out how it actually works before you hit 50, nothing about that was accurate.
It’s been a while since I’ve looked things up on tidal power, but I think there was concerns about marine life being affected by the spinning propellers, things like sharks and rays that are attracted to electrical fields, and possible pollution from leaking components.
That's not even half the problem. If, like the description of the video states, we used enough of these machines to capture enough energy to power the entirety of the US twice over, then there is no doubt we'd disrupt ocean currents, which, in turn, would destroy vital atmospheric weather patterns. Imagine having to study why El Nino/La Nina disappeared, and finding out it's because of a bunch of giant fidget spinners under the water.
also in larger scales i could imagine it influencing bigger currents in the oceans
did you watch the video?
@@dennicam2428 you have a very strong imagination
The spin might be not fast i think the component like oil inside the turbine its dangerous
AS I recall, one of the problems that they had in the Bay of Fundy (in addition to issues with fish, seals, etc.) was that the tidal forces are so strong that the experimental units just disappear - they are torn out of the bottom of the bay and swept away.
I always presumed they spin slowly utilising massive gearboxes to harness the huge torque that flowing water allows the turbine to produce?
@@scottwhitley3392 No, it's a multipole permanent magnet generator.
@@johnwade1095 you capture the energy at low rpm and high torque, then convert it to higher rpm using a gearbox, connected to a generator (in a secure location)?;
This is mostly important because, to achieve decent angular velocity in turbine blades, your would have the tips of the turbines moving at WAY too high velocities!
@GrowToCycle no, really, have a look at openhydro's solution.
@@johnwade1095 I suppose that this is why the more current solutions, such as the O2 Orbital turbine do exactly what I said. I guess I hadn't realised the context of the comment was with respect to OpenHydro's tech. ?
I would love to see some comparable numbers in Diagramms or similar. Some number which here for example compare investment costs and efficiency values. That would help me a lot. Keep it up, love your videos
Thanks for your feedback. Much appreciated.
Id love for the blades to be replaceable and the internal turbines to be 50 or more years of durability and bio foul resistant.
Im thinking like a model airplane. The main body should be preserved but just replace the propellers and wings. Also due to it being in the water. It should be easier to replace a large blade compared to the long-term maintenance of a fleet of wind turbines. (Idk, because i saw so many in California. And I'm just wondering when they all meet their end of life around the same time frame how that's going to be addressed, at least sea maintenance should be a lot easier than land maintenance, due to cargo ship can float more materials to be on stand by. (If its far enough from the cities))
Or maybe there needs to be a way to domesticate a barnacle eater and other predators of biofouling species. Even the shipping industries would love that, if only they could eat the dang things fast enough to offset the down time.
They’ll never do that because Tidal is far from being economically viable. I highly recommend David McKay on Tidal. His book(free online) cover the fallacy of tidal energy.
@@Brandon_letsgo I mean the reality is all green energy as a fallacy by the mere fact that it is not financially possible because of companies that actually work against it if it wasn't so damn expensive I feel they could have made it far more economically friendly more eco-friendly and more scientifically possible to advance if it didn't cost an entire city
I agree, I wasn't such a huge fan of everything made out of plaster, but no real data. Still a good video though.
Fun fact. My dad was one off the supervisors for the original Tidal power project in Hammerfest (Norway). (Specifically in Kvalsund)
They look like small underwater wind mills
For those who understand it, daily life will turn upside down: The Connections (2021) [short documentary] 💖
I used to fish off the little pier below that bridge. I was always deadly scared of potentially getting my line snagged in one of the turbines, little did I know this was virtually impossible.
Also really weird to see you commenting on a randomly recommended TH-cam video. Haven't seen you in a decade
Yea well tell him to hurry up
can anyone please explain in terms of Albert einstein way rather than newton's one?
One thing not mentioned in this video in regards to marine life is the production of electricity and resulting change in magnetic field characteristics around the turbines. Lots of fish can detect magnetic and electric signals from quite a distance. Putting some extra sources of magnetic field in the ocean could potentially disrupt the ability of these animals to navigate.
I was thinking the same thing. Guess whatever humanity does good brings destruction with itself. We grow too large as species...
They can evolve.
@@jacktaylor8195 Yeah, what are they still doing in the ocean anyway?
Much like moths using stars, bats using high frequencies, that kind of evolution won't happen in our lifetime. If at all.
@@simmerke1111 Sarcasm mate, chill your beans.
@@jacktaylor8195 it wasn’t that obvious. ;)
What they're not telling people is that the average energy content of the tides per unit area of ocean is extremely small, far too small to do anything useful with. Only in a very few places in the world are the tides strong enough to get useful amounts of energy out, and even then, it turns out you don't get much electricity. Yes the French plant produces 250 MW, but what they don't tell you is that that's the peak output. Most of the time it sits there doing nothing, and only produces the 250 MW briefly near high and low tide. The rest of the time it generates nothing.
As for tidal flow, that demonstration plant is installed in the Orkney islands, which have the strongest tidal flows in the world. it generates a whopping 2 MW (peak), one 15,000th of the UK's average demand for electricity. Put it anywhere else and it won't generate as much electricity, in fact in most places it'll generate nothing at all, apart from higher bills for the electricity consumers forced to pay for this nonsense.
we need this energy now so why are we still using fossil fuels then?🤔
In 1970’s at university we talked about harnessing the Nova Scotia’s Bay of Fundy tidal currents. Eventually permanent turbines were put in. The tides wrecked the machines and they were removed.
Thank you Mr corpo now are you going to offer to sell me a bunch of fossil fuel or what?
0:13 I love how they simulated a fish getting hit
A guy I know (PhD from UMIST and various engineering patents) had a concept for using tidal turbines in the British Channel. He'd conceived a innovative design to compensate for the tide turning and for minimum maintenance to the moving parts and no need for complicated systems. Very simple/effective. I illustrated the visuals and he proposed it to the UK Govt (the then Dept of Energy) with semi-detailed plans and he wanted nothing for it as he'd made his money and was semi-retired) but the Govt couldn't take concepts to design themselves - they needed him to develop the business, create prototypes, etc. Plus the environmental lobby opposed any bankside development on the Severn.
It was interesting to see the Dept of Energy release an article in the Times about a year later, with drawings very similar to mine but they'd misinterpreted some areas and created a more complex but less efficient design that would cost times as much. Always wondered if it was a missed opportunity as UK waters are nothing but tidal? 🤔
I think I know the design you are talking about.
The issue with the UK government is they talk the talk but mostly don't walk the walk. They prefer ready solutions over developing them for at least the past 30 years.
The evidence is the attention paid to developing technologies for the NHS, where they suggested a unified IT system, then waited for individual trusts to develop something and ended up buying programs from the US. However the systems didn't work well as the NHS had different needs and its taken years to adapt it to an ideal state.
That said, it's still not ideal as it's not connected across the country but varies from trust to trust 🤷
They want the benefits without the risks 😆 and considering how risk adverse our recent politicians it makes total sense the rest of the government departments follow suit.
@@TheKamiBunny nhs trusts were set up to compete not cooperate
I live on the shore of Minas Basin, an arm of the Bay of Fundy. We have the world’s highest tides (with a range between 8 and 18 meters) and tidal power has been discussed here for a very long time. The 1 Canadian plant that you mention is further down the Bay of Fundy, it’s in fact a dam in one of the rivers feeding into the Bay. It opened around the same time as La Rance but stopped operating 3 years ago. The renewed in-stream tidal power initiative started about 15 years ago. The Government built an interpretive Center at the site where a tailor-made cable from three turbine locations comes ashore. A donut-shaped turbine was installed twice and both times failed within days. And then couldn’t be removed because of the strength of the currents. We are nowhere near even a pilot project after all these years. In addition, the fishing community is dead against it, causing endless delays.
There have been much better successes around Shetland and Orkney. I’d love to see more progress here but I don’t have much hope
Yup. break downs, cost and fish harm. I still remember visiting it a few years after it opened (fr. NB).
The currents of that bay are so volatile. I'm not sure why they ever thought they'd be able to harness it. Especially in that area around Parrsboro
@@mrdaury5 - I don't have any idea whether Parrsboro was good choice or not but I really believe the Fundy Tides are a treasure trove of renewable power. Like the video said though - expense, developing tech and lack of a local market make the area a long shot right now. Trial aquatic turbines placed in the Bay literally had their rotors destroyed; such was the power of the water. There are some energy comparisons I've heard before about the comparison of the energy in each tide in the Bay being equivalent to some crazy number of nuclear bombs (funny how we always compare energy to them - rolls eyes). But still - future potential. (just hope ACOA doesn't fund any such ventures - if you're a Maritimer, you'll get it - lol)
@@pboyd4278 At mid tide, the flow of the current is that of all the world's rivers and streams combined. Crazy powerful. And I am a maritimer! Been a tour guide rafting on the Shubenacadie River for 6 years now.
@@mrdaury5 Nice :) I'm stuck in Toronto for now but have land overlooking the SJ River (Wolastoq) and will be home sooner than later I hope. Cheers!
For an island that has such a coastline as England, Wales and Scotland, I can only imagine that successive Governments' indifference and anti-lobbying from coal and then gas interests have had their play. I remember the subject being discussed back in the 1960s.
A hydraulic arm connected to a float is a much less invasive approach to collecting energy from changing tide levels.
All the machinery involved is above water where humans may maintain it and no moving parts underwater to harm wildlife.
Edited for spelling
One aspect comes to mind, modern cruise ships use large diesel electric pots for propulsion. So lot of R&D is done already and there is a manufacturing chain in place, how hard would it be to adopt those for tidal power ?
The big non renewables don't fund or block such steps...
Good question!
If you'd like to know more about the topic we've added some additional links for further reading. It's in the description, just click the "show more" button :)
Odviously too hard.
@@porkchopspapi5757 i disagree
@@jantschierschky3461 OK, why?
0:25 is that globally we could provide energy to the United States twice over. Or the United States has access to enough coastal regions to power itself twice over? There’s a huge difference. I’d change my career based on the answer.
Hey, great question. The answer is globally :) Some calculations say that if we harness the power of ALL tides around the world, we could generate more power than global capacity at the moment, but this number I quoted is the practical/economically viable estimate.
Think US tides are relatively minor, however if you consider Canada's east coast than you have huge potential with 14m tides in some areas and big bays.
Be careful. Figures like that usually have been stretched extremely to prove the authors opinion.
It's even unclear if it's calculated based on primary energy or electrical energy.
So the numbers as they are aren't worth the paper they are written on ;)
I think its estimated on volumen and mass of the water involved in tides. But to lock all that into usable electricity is impossible (or not yet and hope it never be because biolife diversity etc.) But I hope some good part of it will be used on sustainable way... (sorry my English is not the best)
Best solution is mix of renewables and nuclear. Nuclear where grid density justifies it. Renewables where population density is smaller.
Artificial lagoons will make great tourism areas too, just hope they can find a way to minimize environment damage.
Yes, we touch on this 5:30 in the video. Did you enjoy watching?
As long as MASSIVE amounts of concrete are involved, they can’t.
@@petergoestohollywood382 as I understand it for the Swansea lagoon project in Wales a minimum concrete would used. About the same as a large housing development. Most of the walls are surrounded by quarried local stone.
Watching this for a school assignment…I actually got sucked into it, really interesting!
Like wind turbines, tidal turbines could provide some power, but at what cost? I'm not talking about the material cost, but the collateral costs like killing thousands of birds and fish. Most people are like "that doesn't matter so long as I get some electricity", but at the same time "want to save the planet".
I guess the biggest problem with tidal energy is that ocean is a harsh environment. Fixing things or keeping them clean and in working order is tough.
And Yet, ships use huge moving metal parts under water constantly and still run profitable . 🤷
A ship screw shouldnt be that different from a water Turbine.
The animation showing the virtual fish get slapped by the turbine worries me a lil ..😆
Tho i think solutions for less dangerous ways of using that huge volume of water moving can be designed. 🤔
@@NewPipeFTW Ships have the advantage of moving quite fast, which helps to keep the hull and propellers clean, but, inspite of that, all ships must visit dry docs and undergo hull cleaning to get rid of barnacles and other nasty stuff that builds up on the hull.
And they run profitable due to scale. If you could build a turbine the size of a cargo ship then perhaps it would out perform wind turbines. The ocean still is a harsh environment, and if engineers can generate energy buy staying out of it...then they will. Just compare the difficulty of maintaining a solar panel VS under sea turbine. Anyone can clean a solar panel. To clean a turbine, you need a professional highly paid divers...who are in short supply already. To fix the turbines, you need even more rare breed of workers...undersea divers who are also engineers. Alternatively, you would have to detatch the turbine from the sea floor, carry it to a drydock, do the maintenance and re-install it. Im not saying that its impossible....just that its much more expensive.
@@UninstallingWindows
Sure but think oil platforms for example are also a proofof concept.
In the end its a cost/benefit assesment, yeah.
Still nice to see that we have other scalable options in case wind or solar is unavailable.
I could imagine places with less land/wind, where a underwater turbine that is accesible by boats is still more suited than other current power generation tech.
@@UninstallingWindows Truth is you don't know any of this, you are just guessing. Let the engineers involved handle this and stop spreading information white noise
@@johans7775 Truth is, i do know about this. Anyone with rudimentary thinking capabilities knows this.
Good review. Tidal dams are probably a really bad idea. They have to deal with silting up, marine animal displacement, they look bad, the carbon footprint of concrete etc. But the turbines appear to be much less invasive. Albeit the issues that were raised in the video with material selection, and marine life. Also, the fact that salt water and electrical/mechanical components don't mix.
Did you actually have any data about what you're talking about? Did you made any calculations?
The concrete carbon footprint for example. After how much time would a tidal dam beat a gas plant of same power output even tho we spend so much carbon on the concrete?
Also, wind turbines need a shitload of composite materials that cannot be recycled. What would be the cost of maintenance of a tidal turbine versus at wind turbine in term of CO2?
Genuine questions as you sound like an expert............
@@MrPureBasic They weren't dismissing the idea completely, just expressing some doubts about it. Nothing is certain and every calculation is an estimate until put into practice. There's no need for insults also
Way back, like 20 years or so, some people had the idea to combine our German off shore wind farms with hydro power.
Was swiftly swept under the rug, never heard of it again, except if people either laughed about it or had fear for the fish, which would inevitably chopped to pieces, by their perception. Water power is heftily slowed down here in Germany because of the fisher men guilds and such fear for the fish, which they can't fish anymore. Okay, that's mainly for rivers and such, but for the off shore parks there were mainly environmentalists, that fought beside big oil to prevent any further development. One to protect the marine life, the other to protect their profits...
We have too many people with a 'what if? mindset here as well, who fear change.
The Dairy farmer I know didn't think "what if" before agreeing to install a wind farm on the family property.
The first year, half of the herd either stopped producing milk or gave milk that was unfit for consumption.
Now, forget the little fish, consider what happens when a shark, dolphin, or whale collides with a turbine blade.
Dead generator and dead swimmer.
It's not if, it's when.
I find these types of projects fascinating however if it was my choice I would be more interested in using these machines to power colonies on other planets.
For anything else I fully support nuclear. We can continue the efforts to keep the process safe (relatively) and continue research on the uses of daughter isotopes and other programs, I feel it has limitless potential.
We already have ways of utilizing plutonium and other elements and isotopes produced by uranium 235 plants.
wiedapp, some people don't enjoy seeing birds, bats, or fish get chopped to pieces.
Aditi Rajagopal 👍❤️👌
We had tidal turbines here in Nova Scotia where we have the biggest/strongest tides in the world. But the companies trying to install them eventually went bankrupt, they also harmed a whole bunch of marine life.
"Renewables" often do more harm to the environment than fossil fuels do.
@@earlysda I don't really agree with that. They're not perfect, they still do harm but they are better than fossil fuels. The coal plants along the ocean here suck up marine life too.
@@pizzasaurolophus smoothies, you say coal plants suck up marine life. Do you have any evidence for that claim?
Hi, I started watching this as I spotted the animation of the Nova turbines that I produced (I'm used to having my work ripped and re-edited on YT). But I have to admit that this is an excellent video. Easy to follow and well written/produced. A really nice piece of work.
Hey! Thanks for watching and the praise - and we hope we credited you right by crediting the company!
I just binge watched old videos from your channel. Learned somethinf from your recycling videos and Catalysis. Your animations are incredibly simple yet so fun to watch!
If you see the tide in north west Australia is amazing, the 11m at sanctuary Cove and related flow is stunning. Unfortunately low population in that area however Derby and Broome could benefit.
Isn't Sanctuary Cove in Queensland
@@stephencook8001 North WA, derby. Maybe another one in qld
@@jantschierschky3461 you are right ,,never bin to west aus
Great content, amazing ilustrations and selection of experts to explain it, thanks very much!
00:13 the fish: am i a joke to you
who is narrator? her voice is soothing, commanding, crisp and clear!! Great job narrating this. :)
Tide is a weak source of power albeit fairly predictable. However maintenace is a large cost on any marine equipment.
It also has two times that power will drop to nothing.
The other really problematical issues with tidal (or wave) is that they are asynchronous meaning they cannot modulate as demand fluctuates, this eliminates their large scale use. They are also low in inertia another characteristic that keeps the grid stable.
On the face of it a source ofenergy but it is not anywhere as good as it looks.
Gary,
it is lethargic. That is why some tidal generators use barriers to increase velocity and trade it for constant flow.
Predictable but that does not mean that it n
Gary,
to continue, it does not help if it doesn't coincide with demand.
You cannot have agrid that supply and demand do not match at all times. Therefore renewables can never replace conventional generation, it simply cannot work. Batteries are no answer.
It is living in a dream world to believe that low intensity and uncontrollable generation can supply our requirements.
Gary,
I live in the U.K.
Take off your rose tinted glasses and look at things from a realistic technical viewpoint.
Renewables, which include biomass (This significantly flatters the total renewable contribution as it is fairly consistent 365 days a year. It is also synchronous (although it doesn't run as such, it can) and has inertia. Take fossil fuels away and replace them with wind and solar and the grid will trip. No ifs or buts, and it will take days if not weeks to restore and it still will be unstable. Renewables cannot start a dead grid.
Balancing costs are rising in tandem with the increase of renewables as are electricity unit costs. This is the behind the scenes and never reported in the media as such. They report Drax had to restart one of it's coal plants but not why.
Not only is it not possible it is fiscally iresponsible to build such a large capacity of an uncontrollable and expensive source of generation with a relatively short life so they will need replacing more often.
Gary,
yes I have and for very good reasons.
Balance demand to generation, you have to not looked at that realistically. Particularly as wind is so volatile in output with respect to wind speed.
Drax was paid £4000 per Megawatt for this 'last watt'. The simple fact is that we are streched as far as availabiliy of reliable capacity .
You don't say in what discipline your engineering is , mine is power generation.
@@iareid8255 What is your preferred power system?
Funny fact: As a kid growing up sea side in the Netherlands, I used to fantasize about such a concept, as the perpetual ebb and flow would generate near constant energy apart from the moment when the tide is dead/slack. A power plant could be built on an artificial island and constructed in such a way that it could also provide an ecological benefit to marine and bird life both migratory and stationary (reefs, tidal marshes, dunes, sand flats), as well as it roof surface covered in solar cells for the added benefit of solar power (and who knows even redesigned wind turbines that are less obtrusive to the landscape). In the Netherlands the Maasvlakte industrial area near Rotterdam Seaport is a good example of how land was claimed from the sea, and the Marker Wadden project in the IJsselmeer as a beautiful example of artificial islands that created an ecological environmental explosion of wildlife and plant life in an area that was virtually ‘dead’.
If you lower the speed of flow of water (by putting in a turbine) more sand will sink to the seafloor. It could be a nice way of reclaiming land from the sea I guess, if that is a goal. The Waddenzee would clog up in no time if you put turbines in it. A few years of "free energy" and you could walk to Ameland at high tide if you ask me.
@@RDJ2 sure, and if we build too many wind turbines, they'll stop the Northwind, lol!
I think you greatly underestimate the vast amounts of energy that's in the tides and how tiny of a fraction we would need to remove from them in order to satisfy our energy needs.
@@LRM12o8 wind turbines do notably lower wind speeds. If you do that in water, sand will sink down. You probably have no idea what the Waddenzee is, it's already clogging up. Lowering water speed will mean more sand sinks down.
I think you overestimate how much you can take away before balance is disturbed.
@@RDJ2 you mean das Wattenmeer north of Germany, between Denmark and the Netherlands? Of course I know what it is, I've been there! ^^
Since you've made this claim, do you kbow any studies that show the wind slowing down because of wind turbines (not because of global warming)?
Those wind turbines are tiny compared to the sky, like a spec of dust to the human eye. I don't believe neither they, nor the tidal turbines can be anything more than a drop of water in the ocean.
@@LRM12o8 locally they can make quite a difference, you won't change the gulfstream but something like the Waddenzee would clog faster than it's already doing. Locally wind drops after a windpark, it takes tens of kms to pick back up. On a global scale it's irrelevant but my example was local.
I'm surprised that transportation and storage of energy was completely skipped. Tidal energy is great for the coasts, but all land locked cities are going to need some other energy alternative. I was hoping they would talk about energy loss over vast distances, how many batteries would be needed to store this energy, what chemicals are used in the manufacture of batteries, and the waste/lifespan of said batteries. It is disturbing to me that when alternative energy is talked about these are very important and are never mentioned!
Because this video wasn't about the batteries? And they do mention that the zones where this can be used are usually less populated as an issue.
Also, the predictability factor can reduce the amount of batteries needed. In cases of other sources you have to gather as much power as you can while there is supply (sun, wind) and you would use high capacity batteries for that. Here you should be able to greatly downsize those.
That said, haven't they started using mechanical means to store power (eg. flywheels)?
Dams are essentially batteries, and nuclear is a way more solid option overall. Its true that these “innovations” always solve all their “problems” with “just more batteries”
I wrote a paper on tidal/wave energy my sophmore year of undergrad, I'm glad you made this! The Ocean is such an underrated renewable energy source and wave energy should be so widely funded and implemented in places like California, Portugal, Alaska, and even Australia, Russia, and much of South America.
Wave energy is.... A non starter.
Tidal is epic.
If we asked people tidal or nuclear, what is the choice?
Costs billions, produces millions and costs trillions to clean up after.
Tidal is perfect unless you ask conservation critics that are often from outside the area.
The problem with tidal power with systems fixed to the sea floor is they recently discovered that the tide moves boulders the size of houses around the sea floor. These boulders would smash such systems. And secondly stuff grows on turbines in the sea that need cleaning. Tidal undoubtedly works but is expensive.
This is a great example of really accessible sci comm. Great common language and concept useage. Also just really interesting.
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Tidal zones are important zones for fish migration and lots of marine mammals… are they safe? How would this impact fishing? I suspect the two are not compatible. Offshore wind farms encourage fish biomass and can be fished.. I don’t see how a dpiing blade under water could allow fishing.
You fish some place else.
@@DinoAlberini just tell that to the fish that use that area for breeding. Im sure they will understand
@@David-ys4ud fish rarely breed where there are strong currents
Anybody who's spent much time on the ocean knows that the upkeep would be enormous.
The marine environment can be unforgiving.
It's actually insulting our intelligence to propose these designs let alone finance these projects.
Air is far more forgiving than salt water and we have constant problems with the environment destroying wind turbines.
That would provide jobs then
@@Tryp-j9d what part of "enormous upkeep" don't you understand? It would be very expensive to maintain.
The one problem is that the tide stops at low and high tide for about an hour. During this period you still need backup.
The way written ,the way spoken , created video and music wow super making overall easy to understand good job guys 😎
Thank you! So glad the topic resonates with you 🤗 Be sure to subscribe to our channel. We have new videos every Friday ✨
u dont find it quite absurd that the narrator has an indian accent?
Mumbai's Worly-sea-link bridge can have the largest tidal power plant in India. Will have to weigh in environmental cost vs production capacity trade-off.
Non-whites don't care about the environment.
@@chechnya please note that racial stereotyping is prohibited on this page.
@@chechnya fact
@@chechnya lol what? have you seen america?
Also willingness to invest that much with a bit of a slower return of invest. Unfortunately at the moment they focus on the return of Invest for next year, which is going to be not that huge compared to gas power ...
Being later or you have realized the value . Still l remember the first innovative modle created with tidal power establishment 3 decades ago in my motherland by a 12-14 years old school child in a zonal level innovative exhibition. Honestly very few amount of people even pay attention over his great unique mechanism involved .
That's not true at all. It doesn't work. Salt water is highly corrosive and the wildlife will jam up those turbines. This is feel good science without a realistic budget
there are a lot of factual information that is just blurted out by Rajagopal, it would be great if we could get the sources to these factual statements, I acknowledge that this isn't a academic paper or a report. But showing audience the specific statement of facts/ quoting the specific source, would add to the credibility of the video.
One other thing no one has taken into account about using tidal power to create electricity is electromagnetic fields created from the high voltage wires connecting these turbines to their inland connections. How will EM fields affect fish and such?
Amazing narration. Great to hear South Asian accent in such videos so clear and crisp. Great content and greater presentation.
The Patagonian tides are ideal for this type of implementation, I would love for the DW to analyze the potential of the Patagonian tides for the implementation of this technology.
lastima que en la patagonia no vive nadie y mover la energia a el norte es costoso e ineficiente. pero si podria ser una buena semilla para fomentar la descentralizacion del pais y que mas gente viva en l patagonia, que ademas es muy bella
Basically pointless as the highest population densities that need the power live to far away
This sounds great and i've frequently thought about it, the points brought up in this video are all fair and justified though i'm just missing 1 potential problem, and that's noise.
It's a well known fact that marine life is disturbed by the sounds caused by freight liners and what not, so i'm curious on the sound output of these turbines and the effects of it on local wildlife given that it's placed relatively closely to the shores.
I'm pretty sure that is what was meant by displacement at 10:22
They didn't go into detail just concluded that the worst estimates are still better than the effect climate change will have.
They do give off a sound or vibration that fish fo avoid. My family has a fishing business ,and the turbine that was left on the bottom in the bay of fundy in eastern Canada, has caused a lot of fish to change their migration path. The volume of fish in that area has decreased significantly.
The worst part is the amount money that was sunk into the project and the company went bankrupt. It sits rotating on the ocean floor producing nothing and rotting away.
@@rosaschlupfer635 estimates concluded by people, people make mistakes, people have motives and biases, and instead of focusing on more permanent solutions like changing the wasteful aspects of culture, we would rather find new temporary ways to leave the lights on when nobody's home.
I wrote a paper in middle school about this very thing. I would like it to be more widely utilized, just so my 13 year old self will feel vindicated
This a great channel. So happy I stumbled onto it.
Welcome aboard!
The underwater kite is now really promising. Already producing energy in the Faroe Islands.
You can buy the stock in the swedish market.
I've been asking this for years. Why go with unreliable wind when we have huge untapped reliable tides all along our coastline. There is no issue with slack tide or no movement because that high or low tide moment happens at different points along the coast . You only need to be a few miles away from each other and you would avoid that deadspot.
You wanna know?
Cost, its not economical.
Corrosion, its frikin Salt water!
Google a picture of a old windmill and u will see how beat up those are. Now imagine the same but 100 times worse.
@Stein Mauer ... I did watch the video. Lots of places along the east coast where the sand banks funnel currents. We are an island after all. I sail past the wind farms already there and more are planned. One of the reasons gas reserves are low now is because wind let us down last summer. Its true tidal likely to be a bit more expensive than wind until used at scale but not x 5 if comparing off shore wind with tidal generators. And it is vastly cheaper than nuclear.
I’m kind of glad we didn’t, if we globally jumped into it 30-50 years ago we would have destroyed so many rivers and ecosystems that way, but the other way wasn’t much better. Technology increases so fast I’m sure we will see more eco friendly water turbines in the future and I’m excited for it. Clean renewables and nuclear is the future.
@@jcakblade101 I do recognise that. I canoe and sail these waterways. But how much damage are we doing endlessly relying on gas, which all come from Russia.
@@directorstu gass isnt the only alternative. We can use wind, solar, nucler, and fusion(in you know "10-20 years"(aka 100 years))
I had my senior year undergraduate thesis on renewable energy and the most intriguing solutions I found were these ocean turbines and the molten salt turbine found in China and Las Vegas. The biggest problem is the cost to output ratio is pretty severe so these types of electrical solutions are just too expensive at the moment but are really cool solutions when they are cost efficient.
Intersting , my Q have these costs been compared to the costs of oil rigs that drill in the ocean bottoms , just seems that those oil rigs costs would be enormous ?? …curious
I bet you forgot NUCLEAR its 100% clean and it will be the future of power period...
I have thought about this stuff and I reckon maitenance will be the biggest cost (and a nightmare). Maybe a design where only the blades enter the water, making it easier to maintain. And the electronics and mechanics are above the water.
Id say that would goof up the actual fluid dynamics as the thing would be quite top heavy and constantly going up and down, a lot more to count into to harvest the same energy, but hey maybe its a better solution, better than a big ass oil rig.
Dear Aditi Rajagopal:
Thank you. Im looking to get into school for renewable energy. Thank you for this very informational & very well made video, this information is greatly appreciated. You helped me understand a new topic deeply and quickly.
You and tour team are some of the best out there, please keep being you! You may not realize the impact now, but you all are changing the world for real!
You're most welcome. We are very glad to hear and hope you get into the school. Please subscribe to our channel for new videos on environment every Friday! 🍀
@@DWPlanetA thanks for the good wishes, I just subbed!
People forget that salt water is very very corrosive plus these turbines will need a LOT of daily maintenance
I’ve always thought that one way of harnessing bodies of water into electricity (be it the sea, lakes, or rivers) is to make holes at the bottom of the body of water, the deeper the better because it increases water pressure. Then a tube would connect the hole at the bottom of the sea at 100 meters for example (or ten atmospheres of pressure) to another hole at the surface. There would be a great negative pressure whereby the water would flow upwards towards the surface. Then that water pressure would turn turbines at high speeds, producing electricity just like a regular dam would, except that that particular water dam wouldn’t be located at an artificial reservoir but could be at the sea or lake for that matter.
That sounds like you're describing a perpetual motion machine.
pressure only depends on the height of the water column, if you put a tube in the sea, the water will not start flowing out
so if you have two fish tanks of the same height but different width and length, the pressure at the bottom is the same
however, your solution can work but not in the way you expect it
it is possible to exploit the temperature difference between surface water and seafloor water to produce energy, through stirling generator or else
so you just pipe water from the seabed to a power plant at the surface
Your idea is mine too. I thought im the only one thought about it. But you my friend you can not do that becoz the tube where the water exit will level up with the sea level thus no more moving force to move the turbine. Unless we used pump to maintain the negative water level whre the water exit from above .
people worried about these things hurting marine life. meanwhile everything else is ruining the oceans
Unless you have a background in some sort of grid management or operations it can be quite unclear how small the production from the non-range tidal power can be. A whole ship, manned with a few people to produce 2 MW? That's less than one industrial generator and requires so much maintenance and operational costs.
Bc its still in development
The biggest offshore wind turbines, that are much larger than ships, barely go over 10 MW.
Of course the production from a single unit is small, because this is an inherently poor quality dilute energy source.
It's not going to power the world, ever. It's just toy projects to entertain people with.
@@zolikoff What makes you so confident it can't be scaled?
This is feel good science. Any actual engineer will say you will spend more energy to make energy than you will produce
@@VinylUnboxings It inherently has the same properties at the small scale as at the large scale because individual generators are small. It's not like thermal power plants where a 1 GW plant is much more economical per unit energy than a 1 MW plant.
So the system and economic properties will be the same at any scale as now. And they are not good for large scale grid power production. So they won't be at any larger scale either.
The problem with tidal turbines on the sea bed is that the props get hit by rocks/flotsome and therefore need constant maintenance.
it feels like the biggest reason why there isnt enough things like this is money
Are there any designs that involve using the power of a huge float(like a barge size) that moves up and down with the tide geared to turn a turbine? That would solve a lot of problems because the machinery can stay out of the water. The floats would be low maintenance and the only thing in the water.
Enjoyed hearing about this solution. Thanks for producing this content
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Super well explained 💯
For those who understand it, daily life will turn upside down: The Connections (2021) [short documentary] 💖
Thanks you for an excellent informative and balanced presentation. We in the UK are blessed with large tidal ranges and flows that go right around our islands at different times leading to potential 24hr production of energy, we need to be spending a lot more of our energy research budget into tidal stream ideas. The benefits for us as a country long term compared to other sources of power are incredible.
First question that comes to mind: do tides have a purpose regarding flow of minerals, food for aquatic life and such? If yes, should we interfere with a big generator?
The flow is still there. It’s not that the blades rotate fast enough to chop nekton like the windmills are doing with the birds, although much less than people think.
@@DinoAlberini The impact of wind turbines on bird populations has been greatly exaggerated. Yes it has some impact, like every single human structure ever built. But the fact is birds are killed in the billions by human structures every year. Wind turbines are only a small fraction of this.
There is no way we would be taking enough energy from the tides to counteract the gravitational forces applied by the moon, not even close
The sea is incredibly powerful. Unfortunately, that destructive power means that even a tidal barrier would have to be largely rebuilt every 30 years to maintain it in working order. A metal tidal stream turbine in the open ocean would last even less time. This is the Achilles heel of all renewable projects. The upfront capital costs and constant maintenance are very large even if the actual energy input from wind, sea or sun is free.
arguably, every single thing humans have built and rely on require huge capital costs and constant maintenance.
Thank you so much DW is the best ever❤
Reminds me of an out-of-print/discontinued book I bought back in the '80's. Was about the history of recycling and minimum environmental impact engineering. A particular European country during the 1930's had plans to install similar submerged generators at optimal locations in the Mediterranean. The projected output from the proposed project was immense.
So there's bird harm problems with some wind turbine designs. Any possible similar issues with marine life? Seems like there could be.
@@zuutlmna Less issues then nuclear power plants have with whole life.
Pretty good vid. Green energy isn't actually green, as we know. I wish I could remember who spoke of it, but a lot of folks think we have a power production problem when we really just have a power usage problem. The answer isn't producing more types of green energy, it's using less energy and living closer to the environment.
Don't get me wrong, I know this is a complete fantasy because there is no monetary gain involved, but it's nice to think about.
Didn't know about Tidal at all, great video thanks!
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This is a really well constructed video, I learned a lot from it thank you. I love in Wales and I knew about the Swansea barrage which has been a 'project' as long as I can remember which seemingly always gets cancelled, but the point on the map that you showed in this video didn't look like Swansea, it looked closer to Cardiff - is that a new project?
When you make a video like this could you give actual numbers? Like what are the costs, benefits, how long do they last ?
That's the details that will derail this kind of project before it starts. It's all feel good science not based in reality.
Salt water is extremely corrosive, the wildlife will destroy these turbines in a year to two years unless they have constant maintenance
Kinda crazy to think about the fact that technically with Tidal power you are actually taking energy away from the moon orbit and making it closer to us.
I realize the amount of energy we would remove would be relatively minicule. Practically nothing. But a interesting thought none the less
The moon is actually running away from Earth, so that should compensate for that :D Yes, that's a thought game anyway...
The moon is slowly moving away (very slowly), I guess alot of this would slow it down more.
Informative and I like the fact there there weren't many tangents.
Obviously....the cost of maintenance on those units being in salt water....far outweighs the cost of the electricity sold.....
I really hope this is actually A new solution to cleaner energy. I can tell you first hand that more often than not the new green technologies vastly overestimate electrical output and likewise underestimate environmental cost. I completed 2 solar farms in south Georgia as an industrial electrician. The output was suppose to power roughly 60,000 homes a year. Turns out that number was drastically lower. Like 8,000 homes was a lot closer and thats the median range. Now if we talk about consecutive days of overcast weather that number drastically reduces and more often than not would leave a lot of homes without power for several days in month. I am all about replacing our current power production if its a viable solution that won’t leave people freezing in the winter or having heat stroke in the summer. But I have extensively looked into the new green energies including electric vehicles and I can tell you that currently there are no real viable solutions that would not grossly shoot electrical energy through the roof. Your power bill would go from say $300 or so a month to probably $600 or so.
This will be a colossal waste of resources.
Nuclear is all we have right now. The other stuff are not worth the squeeze. We add 88 million people to the world every year too and they say energy won’t peak like about 2035. And if they are using the same methodology for carbon capture tech that doesn’t exist yet who knows when it in actuality peaks.
Thank you for such an informative comment, Michael.
It is indeed a really complex matter, but one we are trying to unpack. We try do so each week. Feel free to hit the subscribe button if you'd like to know more about how we can save our planet.
Thanks for your comment. We have already wondered if we need nuclear power to stop climate change. You can watch the video here: th-cam.com/video/9X00al1FsjM/w-d-xo.html&ab_channel=DWPlanetA
Because it gets coated with weed in 48 hours and the efficiency goes through the floor.
As Amanda Smith so kindly explains in our video around 7:30 min in, engineering underwater usually brings its own set of unique challenges, one being biofouling (8:00 min).
@@DWPlanetA Talking about it doesnt make it go away. Not to mention the fact it chops up fish, interferes with tidal streams, and the ecology, and is also intermittent. Lets face it, if it worked, it would have been used. And dont say 'Rance', thats one project, that has never been repeated. I wonder why.....
i find it fascinating, that with tidal, we are basically tapping into an external energy source: the gravity of moon and sun. Tidal could be built 3 dimensional, other than wind energy.
Well with Wind we are basically tapping into an external energy source too right?
@@ChaosEIC please, to much logic can damage sensitive brains, the question is external to what? body, planet, planetary system, galaxy or Universe?
@@antoniolima1068 obviously planet.
With it you're braking this huge tidal wave leading to non energy at all one day. This is not a solution that lasts forever. It has an impact on Earth's rotation as well. You cannot equip the entire ocean with these things.
@@lampexxl8599 No way Jose. the ocean mass alone that is in move here, we barely have any effect at all on it. plus, as i said, it's basically agitated by the sun and moon - the amount we can possibly take out of the system is absolutely miniscule.
I've been waiting for this to catch on for years.
Genius! 😍😍🤩🤩👍👍👏👏😇😇🥳🥳🙌🙌🙏🙏💖💖💪💪🌈🌈✨✨💕💕
I feel like putting a type of these turbines in certain rivers might be more environmentally friendly than dams, (although without the benefit of flood control and controllable release)
You can, and it is. However you need FAST moving water, which most rivers aren't. What most people believe are fast moving rivers, are about 1/3 of what you'd want. Even then, if you could replace that device with a dam a foot tall you'd get way more port. Physics is heartless sometimes.
I was reading recently that if dams were built in a staggered formation so that each part only stuck out ~25% into the river then a lot of the environmental impacts are actually avoided.
I’m interested to find an example of where it’s been actually done though.
Rivers are too shallow. The rivers deep enough are still too shallow as there are boats that need navigable waters and not a giant fan sitting just below the bow line. Also, Rivers rise and fall with the tide.
I drew a design that used giant floats to turn geared down turbines in theory it could work with waves also. It would be similar to the system shown except the mechanism would function off the up and down movement of massive platform with turbines on the legs. The advantage would be that the turbines would not have to be submerged, thus reducing wear and damage due to salt water and sand in the water
Not to mention it should be easier to maintain and get new parts to. Still like some of the other comments. There is still the issue of energy loss over distance. Where landlocked countries and states(in the case of the USA). Meaning they need to figure something out for storage. Or a different source of power
@@rignatetris4435 There's been some developments there luckily, governments in Canada and Germany have begun the planning stages of renewable energy projects for production of hydrogen, stored as ammonia. The ammonia/hydrogen would be a liquid battery of sorts and will likely be used to support hydrogen fuel cell car economy with Europe switching away from ICE cars.
Between the massive amount of resources needed to create the turbines, the maintenance, the disruption to natural ecosystems and the fact that there are so few places where there is sufficient tidal flux to make this even remotely viable for production and even then it would only hope to work for coastal cities near to those high-flux areas.
I actually disagree, resources needed are not that great, if you use suspended system your impact is minimal. There are areas were tidal movement are massive. There are areas where sea currants are fast . I would even state that number of bays can be used like San Francisco Bay
@@jantschierschky3461 By resources needed, that is referring to the amount of resources needed versus electricity generated compared to other media. There is also the impact on shipping to be considered for bay areas, as any sufficiently large turbines can be hazardous to, or experience hazard from, heavy tankers of sufficient displacement, which would limit viable placement even further.
@@AximandTheCursed well if you consider the energy and placement I doubt you have issues in that regard, if we take SF as an example the shipping lane is on the northern end, the current on the southern end is over 3m/S that could produce around 6MW on my basic calculations using modified seapots. Also bay under the golden gate is over 100m well below any ships draft, so if you consider 3-4m/S you could produce 80-100MW
@@jantschierschky3461 ...and with the same amount of resources you could have a 1GW nuclear plant on a fraction of the land, cheaper and with lower maintenance overheads to boot. That's the point.
@@AximandTheCursed actually a nuclear plant is very expensive and takes ages to build. If nuclear I would choose block units. However storage is the key problem, because public perception. However if you consider the cost, productivity water turbines have a place
I don't imagine so. Saltwater eats everything at phenomenal rates. While the ocean has potential energy, I imagine the costs will be too high. Sealife is a concern too. In terms of total costs for installation and maintenance will be too expensive. Just ask any Navy.
Maintaining anything thats subjected to salt water regularly is going to be hard, and expensive.
This seems really promising but I really do worry about the capacity for these to ruin estuaries. These should be implemented more, but I don’t see how these are better than solar and thorium reactors.
They are not. Solar has to be the gradual creeper, covering the fields (literally) while we build out proper nuclear capacity, but nuclear **has** to be the focus.. yes they take longer but if we start building in bulk **now** we can literally be carbon-neutral by 2035.
@@nowandrew4442 LOL
New subscriber here. Marvelous exploration of the potential solutions to fulfill energy needs and the discussion around the advantages and disadvantages. Additionally, so happy to see excerpts from interviews with a range of scientists. These solutions could be applied to rivers...and I'm not talking about dams. Peace and health, everyone. Happy to be a member of the DW Planet A family.
Props to DW whose documentaries i use as class room thinking material
Which ones have you used, Jonny?
@@DWPlanetA A lot of them actually... I like them because they are about current problems, are shorter and more direct. Your videos also have a good subtitle support, wich has to be considered if im showing this in class. I can tell you that "A platic wave" got some reactions. I am from Portugal btw. Keep it up!
It shouldn't be a big thing! We as humans have messed the oceans up enough already!!
Tidal power seems like a great long term innovative disruptor if the costs and innovations could exist to bring the price to build down.
I lived on the Gulf of Mexico for most of my life and I see it as being expensive to generate and maintain. With barnacles, electrolysis and salt water corrosion on the unit and cables servicing the units, it would be labor intensive on keeping everything working and not feasible. Salt water either drastically shortens the life of things or totally destroys lots of materials including steel, stainless steel, aluminum and barnacles destroys the rest. I know there are materials that resist seawater and living organisms but these materials are not proof but resistant. Coupled with electric cables, there will be tremendous problems on connections.
All these feel good ideas... they spend so much time talking about how great it is but barely talking about the difficulties... great ideas can be good but also impractical to implement. The biggets problem here isnt obtaining tidal power, its maintenance and distribution. Just wait till the EPA gets involved.
There’s enormous consistent energy in tidal forces. I’m curious about how much hydroelectric could be could be produced around canals or straits (where there’s a elevation difference in water levels). Of course many of these areas in the world are sparsely populated therefore efficient transmission is the dilemma.
Amazing video! Your explanations and montage are on point and you address every part which needs it. All the questions I had when clicking on the video and then while watching were answered. Thank you, subscribed!
If biofiling presents an operational costs - then it makes sense to have robotic solutions to auto -clear the growth - with cameras tech and robotic it can be set on auto
Think like a home fish tank. Put some eco friendly material housing structures at the bottom nearby the tidal turbine generator.
This seems great, but can't those interfere with the ecosystem similar to how wind turbines do?
Wind turbines dont interfere with the ecosystem...
@@1lifeonearth that's not true. You didn't even try.
@@1lifeonearth may not seem like it at first, but the construction and maintenance of them can impede the ability of the surrounding wildlife to live properly. Yes, there is wildlife in open fields. They also can actually start messing with global wide air currents, believe it or not, which if not paid any attention could lead to catastrophic consequences.
@@wertbe1718 so what do you suggest... coal?... hahahahah
That's addressed. They cause some disruption to ecosystems, but nearly as much as continuing with the status quo will.
I wonder what are the arguments against nuclear power
Good question!
We've dived into this topic in an earlier video. You can watch it here: th-cam.com/video/9X00al1FsjM/w-d-xo.html
Cost, storage and perceived risk. I believe if nuclear is viable if used in block systems (shipping container size) not those huge power plants
Fu - ku - shi - maaa
@@kingdom1872 was caused by the greedy company who run the reactor who refised to upgrade their backup generator and its housing
@@trashmammal454 So, how do we prevent greedy corporation or career hungry person (like in Chernobyl)? Serious question here. Cause it is significantly hugh risk to the world than let say greedy solar/wind company.
Well done clearly explained video. You should be a teacher you would be very good at it.
We are extremely happy to have Aditi as part of our team :) #GreatReporting #IndependentMinds
She is a teacher - except using this method of sharing information, tens of thousands of people can be impacted instead of just a small group.
it's my first time knowing about the term biofouling, you really learn something everyday