Tidal Energy

[MagnetMan]

Gulf of California Hydro-Electric Proposal

 

Harnessing the tidal lift in the Gulf is one of the planet management pojects proposed by our non-profit Global Stewardship Foundation.

 

 

 

Twelve years ago we sent a team down to the Gulf for a preliminary hydro-electric feasibility study.

 

The current generated by the gravitational pull is about 6 knots both ways. At the Midriff region, in the channel between Mexico and Tiburon island (about two miles off off-shore) the current accelerates to roughly twenty knots. This acceleration led to the idea that if a floating barage of islands is strung across the Gulf (each about five miles in diameter) linking with Tiburon and two other smaller islands, an artificial venturi system could be created that could harness as much a twenty percent of the Gulf's tidal energy. A rough estimate of total energy of 5 billion HP was put on the table.

 

In the furtherance of seeking alternative sustainable energy sources for Mexico and the US, it would be interesting to get further comment on this, especially as regards exacty how much tidal energy is present.

 

Hydrology:

Situated in the San Andreas fault zone.

65,000 square miles, 700 miles long x 100 miles wide

10,000 feet deep in places

At spring tide the maximun lift is 30 feet.

 

[Cedars]

Gulf of California Hydro-Electric Proposal

 

Harnessing the tidal lift in the Gulf is one of the planet management pojects proposed by our non-profit Global Stewardship Foundation.

 

Twelve years ago we sent a team down to the Gulf for a preliminary hydro-electric feasibility study.

 

I hope you didnt spend too much of the foundation resources on this venture. That whole area is off limits due to this:

 

http://sea.unep-wcmc.org/wdbpa/sitedetails.cfm?siteid=902481&level=int&layer=pa

[UncleAl]

Harnessing the tidal lift in the Gulf is one of the planet management pojects proposed by our non-profit Global Stewardship Foundation.

Energy is conserved. If you extract energy from the tides then you change the moon's orbit. Do you want to screw around with the moon's orbit?

 

Save us from the do-gooders.

[MagnetMan]

I hope you didnt spend too much of the foundation resources on this venture. That whole area is off limits due to this:

 

http://sea.unep-wcmc.org/wdbpa/sitedetails.cfm?siteid=902481&level=int&layer=pa

 

All our global stewardship proposals are naturally subject to long-term environmental impacts. The nesting sites on the islands in the Gulf will remain untouched. A floating barrage will have minum marine impact and allow hump whales to pass underneath. The clean energy generated will off-set the combustion of fossil fuels a thousand fold. Employment will last a generations for several million Mexicans, and help repair our damaged relationships. In fact Americans will cross the border looking for work!

 

We would still like to know if anybody can give the correct formulae for measuring the gravitation pull on the Gulf and or any other method of milking it??

[Qfwfq]

If it's a floating barrier and the whales can go under it, so can the water, how do you maintain a level difference between the two sides and extract energy? You would need a more radical structure. According to your figures, I calculate the average power would be a few hundred MW and maximum attainable power (at spring tide) around 3/4 GW, would it really be worth it? That's not a shallow depth to build a 100 mile dam in and it wuold have to stand strain in both ways.

 

If you extract energy from the tides then you change the moon's orbit.

Why don't you stick to organic chemistry Unc? How could harnessing tidal energy change the moon's orbit?

[Qfwfq]

Sorry, read you better now:

the idea that if a floating barage of islands is strung across the Gulf (each about five miles in diameter) linking with Tiburon and two other smaller islands, an artificial venturi system could be created that could harness as much a twenty percent of the Gulf's tidal energy. A rough estimate of total energy of 5 billion HP was put on the table.

but I think 20% is a mighty optimistic estimate for such a scheme and it would mean some 150 MW at spring tide. I think you'd have to expect a lot less.

 

5 billion HP? :lol: man that's more than 3675 GW, a few times the ideal maximum possible figure!

[Qfwfq]

:lol: I was getting something wrong with my units, the maximum ideal limit at spring tide would be slightly more than your 5 billion HP estimate and perhaps around a billion at neap tide, but I still doubt you could hope to harness much of it. I think it would still be optimistic to hope for 1 GW on the average.

[MagnetMan]

:evil: I was getting something wrong with my units, the maximum ideal limit at spring tide would be slightly more than your 5 billion HP estimate and perhaps around a billion at neap tide, but I still doubt you could hope to harness much of it. I think it would still be optimistic to hope for 1 GW on the average.

 

Thanks for input so far. What if the barrier was anchored and could not rise?

[Errin OH]

While I only know enough to be dangerous, my research on the subject leaves a few BIG obstacles to over come.

 

1 Vessel. Run that by a structural engineer. Then tell him what you plan to do with it.

 

2 Environment. You would be correct in keeping "Millions" of Mexicans employed for years. Cleaning and maintaining a structure that size in a salt water marine environment. Whales are nothing, go pickup just about anything that been in it for any length of time.

 

3 Generation. This is the biggest issue we have with today’s technology (AC). Makes for great transportation, but we have no good way to store it. Where does the power come from during transition. We can convert to/from something else but we have fairly sizable losses both ways.

 

4 Cost. We currently pay about a dime per KW, some more, some less. This little project would likely be in the buck range, if not a lot more, even paying all those Mexicans a couple bucks an hour. You think folks are freaking out about gas prices?

 

But you could move it inland and have a viable product. Take a large section of land and clear it out to a depth that equals low tide. The only section that would require daily maintenance would be the inlets to several retaining lakes. Build your generator in the inlets to produce power each way. As tide rises you produce energy, when it goes down you produce energy. The beauty part of this is you can store energy without converting it to anything. Simply shut the gates. This way you can stager the cycles of the lakes. At low tide when one is empty one would be half empty and producing. Same with high tide, one would be full (no gen) the other half full (generating). This doesn’t overcome the demand vs use efficiencies, but you really wouldn’t need to worry about them as the tide is free and it would only add a little extra maintenance with the unused generation. You’d have no reason to store longer than a tide cycle and could configure the lakes to match demand. Keep in mind though this would take a LOT of ground to do. Still costly, but I think it is a tad more feasible, as your vessel would require no structural support, just a liner.

[MagnetMan]

4 Cost. We currently pay about a dime per KW, some more, some less. This little project would likely be in the buck range, if not a lot more, even paying all those Mexicans a couple bucks an hour. You think folks are freaking out about gas prices?

If we amortize it over several generations we could get it down to less than a nickel.

 

But you could move it inland and have a viable product. Take a large section of land and clear it out to a depth that equals low tide. The only section that would require daily maintenance would be the inlets to several retaining lakes. Build your generator in the inlets to produce power each way. As tide rises you produce energy, when it goes down you produce energy. The beauty part of this is you can store energy without converting it to anything. Simply shut the gates. This way you can stager the cycles of the lakes. At low tide when one is empty one would be half empty and producing. Same with high tide, one would be full (no gen) the other half full (generating). This doesn’t overcome the demand vs use efficiencies, but you really wouldn’t need to worry about them as the tide is free and it would only add a little extra maintenance with the unused generation. You’d have no reason to store longer than a tide cycle and could configure the lakes to match demand. Keep in mind though this would take a LOT of ground to do. Still costly, but I think it is a tad more feasible, as your vessel would require no structural support, just a liner.

 

Great idea! Clever adapatation. Plenty cheap desert land on the mainland side of the Gulf. Beginnings of a lunar energy think tank here maybe. Any more good ideas out there??:)

 

For instance, how about platform floats (made up of giant up-turned concrete silos, riding on trapped compressed air) acting as pumps?

[arkain101]

I thought I would post in an idea I had awhile ago and posted here. I imagine pretty badly written but I wont bother to edit it.

 

I have a new concept in tidal gereration that is nearly completely free energy and does not stop generating power. I thought up the concept in my spare time while I have been inventing hundreds of other things. I am looking for employment. This idea I am not interested in patenting. I want to free it to the world as I see it being the most effect power generating system to date.

 

This is a copy and paste where I posted the idea on a science forum. Mind you, its in very rough copy but I assure you will get the picture.

 

Okay, you know the effect that occurs when you take a glass and put it under water letting all the air escape, then, turn it upside down and as you try to pull it out of the water there is a suction effect that holds it down.

 

You go out to a place in the ocean, build a large square box. Aprox, 100 feet by 100 feet and 5 feet tall. with sealing doors both on the top and the bottom of the box. Okay so we hook up towers to this device all around, about 50 towers or so. Now there is no water in the box and the tide is down. As the tide comes up the bouyancee of this box causes it to float and as the tide goes up, it turns massive generators with great pressure. Now when the tide is full and slack, doors open and we let the box fill with water. Now when the tide goes out we have a GIGANTUON weight force pulling down as we use the suction effect and the weight of the water to turn generators with a very high gear ratio, so the generators might be humming at 10,000rpm while the box slowly tugs down 1inch every 10mins. Now then the tide is all the way down, the doors open and let the gravity pump all the water out. Again its all air now and when the tide comes around again.. cycle returns. Its a 1stroke system, and would have so much energy that it would be hard to attatch enough generaters to make use of it.

 

In the concept I came up with here. Lets say we have a 50foot by 50foot deck and a set of towers around the pad and all along the inside aswell to give it structural strength. It would look like a grid of towers standing on the ocean floor with a large pad that is able float up and down on these towers. Lets make the pad 10 feet tall.

here we have 2500 x10= 25,000cubic feet (1 cubic feet = 28.3168466 liters) 28x25,000= 700,000 litres 1kg=1litre = 688tons of water not including the suction effect that will turn generators for as long as the tide is in motion.

thats alot of energy. 7,000,000newtons x 5m tide = 35,000,000 KJ's of energy, then add in the estimation of about 1.5 x's the force with suction, 52million kj's.

Pretty rough estimates but thats just a small one.

I came up with this concept awhile back.. but today I spent a moment on it and pictured how to make it work as I planned.

I see it working flawlessly.

 

And with this design it is capable of making power at all times. Maybe not as much but still power.

WHen the deck is at the bootom on its rest plates on the several towers. it is still full of water. Tide is slack, deck is stopped. One would think the power generation is over with. But As we drain the water we drain it through a turbine. and the gravity pulls the water out and makes a energy. Also, we put a air turbine like ones used in air pressure tide power. So when the water rushes out, air rushes in, causing the air flow and water flow to make power as the deck sits still. Once shes full of air.. All the doors close up. Tide comes up and it floats up making power. Now when it reaches its rest at high slack tide. It opends the doors again. The weight of the deck (which would be immense) sinks under gravity. The water that is forced in goes through the turbine again, and the air the is forced out through the top turns a turbine aswell. once it is fully packed with water, the multiple towers lock the deck from sinking any further. The Top floor openings are sealed up. Now we either at this point seal the bottom passages so its one big sealed water tank or, we leave it open (if this suction effect that I dont understand that well actually has a stronger effect than the weight of the water alone). Now as the tide goes down this millions of pounds of water is suspended by the towers held in the deck. the locks are released as the tide gets near the bottom of the deck. Gears attatched to the towers and deck or hydraulics take over and turn generators. The generators need to be powerful or numreous enough to stop the deck from moving, the motoin of the deck is maintained through the electrical drag of the hundreds of generators. Tide starts to slack out again. We release the water and make a little bit of power again.

See with this system the entire available mass is put to nearlly 100% use. Where as turbines only cut through the mass and let almost all of it slip by while it captures what it can making it far less productive.

I dont know how big these could be built but. Over here on the west coast I have seen nearly 20 foot tides in ciratain areas. You build one to have the production of a couple hoover dam's and your in some serious business.

 

And remember that tides are not just moving up and down water, they are flowing water filling basins. So while this water flows past this structure it can like wise be captured by dam like turbines.

 

In fact have you ever take a spoon and put the back side of it under a tap. You might expect the spoon to get pushed away. But it creates the same lift effect as an air plane and the spoon will become glued to the moving water. The bottom shape of this deck could be made in such a way to Glue it to the flowing water aswell, forcing it to be sucked down with the dropping water levels. Add all that together, you might aswell cover the deck in solar panels. or windmills, since some parts of the ocean are cursed with constant high winds. Then we could really make use of those huricanes that are usually a pain.

 

Then all of this power should be directed to a Momentum station. That is what most electric stations do anyway. They use large capacitors to prevent fluctioation in the electric flow. But if you were to hook this all up to a massive spinning wheel on the ground, that one was to make very friction free. Then have it spinning very quickly, if you could balance such an object. Then it would smooth out the electric flow and (and of course use up some of it) but keep it going when the station is under low power..

Not to sure about the big momentum wheel but.. it was a quick though.

 

So you see this concept is always generating power. you could literally power the whole country with a few of these. Think of it.

 

 

I am also excited to hear the results on my invention submission to the American patent & trademark institute of america, of my new engine and car designed to get in the ranges of a thousand miles/gallon on pump gas, or, when using the hydrogen setup included it is literally intended to be self propelled. Spent alot of time on this one and cant wait to hear what the engineers and marketers think of it.

[Errin OH]

While I agree there is a lot of energy to be harnessed from the sea, any idea that includes a large structure in or on the sea needs to consult an engineer educated in salt water marine environment. There is a reason we do not have cities on the bottom of the ocean. A simple pipe line that just lies there is coated with material that protects it form the sea. The coating cost way more than the pipe. The owners still have to inspect it regularly and repair when needed or risk loss of the line. This process is very expensive and labor intensive. While the initial investment on a structure needed to harness tidal energy may be depreciable over a long period of time (30-40 years, not hundreds) the yearly maintenance cost (labor) can not.

 

Another process I have given some thought, though it doesn't apply to tidal currents, is wind currents. Not windmills, but, a surface covered, with say a fiber that collects electrical currents as the air moves across them. A “static collector”. Here too the problem would be surface area. It would have to be LARGE.

[MagnetMan]

I thought I would post in an idea I had awhile ago and posted here. I imagine pretty badly written but I wont bother to edit it.

 

I have a new concept in tidal gereration that is nearly completely free energy and does not stop generating power. I thought up the concept in my spare time while I have been inventing hundreds of other things. I am looking for employment. This idea I am not interested in patenting. I want to free it to the world as I see it being the most effect power generating system to date.

 

.

 

Thanks for sharing your ideas freely. Thats the spirit we will all need in the 21st Century. The time and money invested trying to establish private ownership and protect it from pirates has shipwrecked too many good ideas. Had not previously thought of harnessing the suction effect as well. If you can post a diagram on your idea it will be even more illustrative.

Best of luck on you car deal.:cup:

 

Errin. As regards thwe difficulties of marine maintanence I get your point. But the need for energy already lies, in my opinion, beyond the artifcial constraints of money. We have endless supplies of labor. If we do not get large scale projects under construction right now, while we still have the energy to do it ( a full generation will be needed) our civilization will collapse. Not having renewable energy foresight is precisely how and why all past civilizations died out and disappeared from memory. (They chopped down the forests and when the trip out and back was no longer economically feasible, back to the jungle again.) New York City, for instance, cannot last one month without energy. We are repeating the same short-sighted energy mistake today, and this time there are no forests left to retreat back to.

[Racoon]

Great Ideas guys!

 

Totally possible.

Utterly Expensive!!

But it would pay for itself over time, and again.

 

Japan has something like this already I believe...

an Ocean Current Generator. :cup:

[MagnetMan]

Great Ideas guys!

 

Totally possible.

Utterly Expensive!!

But it would pay for itself over time, and again.

Its do or die Racoon. F...the money! The planet cannot sustain us without our industry. Industry cannot function without energy. Hence the meaning and purpose of our big brain. Now all we have got to do is get over small short-term thinking and beginning thinking long-term global.

 

We have to harness every kind of renewable energy conceivable in order to deal with the exponential over-load the next generation will be facing.

 

Japan has something like this already I believe...

an Ocean Current Generator. :cup:

Hawaii has OTEC. Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion.

 

Our foundation designed a wave energy power station. It got a big splash in the L.A. Times fifteen years ago. Will post that engieering diagram next. Meantime, please keep the ideas rolling.

 

Errin I am having some difficulty visualizing the artificial holding lakes concept that you put forward. As the tide comes in, how do the turbines keep turnimng as the water backs up beyond the inlets?

[Errin OH]

It is actually a take off on what they are doing in Missouri now. During times when demand is down instead of cutting production, they use the excess to pump water into a holding lake. When demand exceeds capacity they release the water to generate additional electricity. A kind of goofy storage system.

 

It would take some serious thought to design the drive assembly. You'd have lot of low end torque that would follow a curve as the holding lake is filled and emptied. You may actually only get good production on the first half of the cycle (filling an empty lake at high tide). As the lake fills or drains the last half may fall below the curve of usable torque (has to do with the resistance as they equal out). Anyway the drive would be located at the base of the damn/gates. During tide cycles (low to high) they would produce as the lake fills. Conversely, during high to low, they would produce as the lake drains. Offsetting the actual filling and draining vs tide level you could manage the power curve a little. Anyway, one lake wouldn't do it. Since the tide has a slack period. You would need a series of lakes configure like a combustion engine. Lake 1 would be xx capacity ahead of lake two, which is xx ahead of lake three, etc. This way you could maintain a constant power curve as the lakes fill and drain. Wither you went to the trouble to design the inlets together (more resistance as the water would have to travel some distance in a pipe) or link by electric lines (losses and syncing of generators) would be another serious consideration.

 

While I agree with the "Get started now theme", I don't think it is quite as bad as "Damn the cost full speed ahead". We do need to quit screwing around (politicians) and get serious on some ideas. I like to see a program like they did with the space flight thing, although I think the parameters for it were to lax. Set it up so someone or a group could come in and demonstrate the viability of their plan without having to spend billions on a project that we tax payers have to subsidize forever to be economical. Award the winner(s) with a grant to further develop the technology. Then have a full accounting of the cost and issues that are involved (yes I fell for the 50 cent a gallon bio diesel thing :estrange: ). A private, non governmental, review board could recommend further funding and research if needed. Once it proven private industry would pick it up and run with it.

 

I like what they are doing with the sterling engine and mirrors. A dish shaped panel array about 30' across that produces 25KW of electricity. :confused: I will have to look into the OTEC as I haven't read much on it.

[MagnetMan]