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Jason Ford
News Editor
Water, water everywhere
On February 7 Briefing was censured by a reader who wrote in to speak up for tidal energy over offshore wind power.
Said reader dismissed the content of an offshore wind event as ‘balderdash and bunkum’.
In order to redress the balance, Briefing looks west to Wales and a half-day seminar taking place on Wednesday that will consider marine renewables.
The organisers say that by 2025 Wales could generate more electricity from renewables than it consumes as a nation and that much of this will be from marine sources.
Organised by IET and held at Cardiff University, three sessions will look at marine energy policy and ongoing research, tidal energy technology and deployment, and wave energy technology and deployment.
According to the event’s publicity material, speakers will consider the design and development of marine renewable technology and discuss the challenges presented in their construction and commissioning along with discussion of typical connection arrangements.
The final session will look at Wales’ marine energy policy and ongoing research to create a sustainable framework in which the country can move forward to capture energy from the sea.
From harnessing the power of the sea to mitigating floods caused by rising sea levels and news that Britain’s biggest ever emergency exercise is to take place this week.
Exercise Watermark has been designed to test a number of disaster scenarios that could arise from flash floods, overflowing rivers and a North Sea tidal surge.
Exercise Watermark is one of the recommendations made by Sir Michael Pitt in his review of the summer 2007 floods, where almost 7,000 businesses were flooded. Similarly, in 2009 hundreds of businesses were severely affected by flooding in Cumbria.
One-in-six properties in England and Wales are said to be at risk from flooding, and Exercise Watermark will bring together ten government departments, 34 local ‘resilience forums’, emergency responders, water and energy companies, plus hospitals and schools to assess preparedness.
According to the Environment Agency, five water companies and nearly all electricity providers will be using the exercise to consider the resilience of their sites and review their existing flood plan to ensure that critical infrastructure is prepared for future flooding.
Skills are back on the agenda with news that the government has today launched the Growth and Innovation Fund (GIF).
The Department of Business, Innovation and Skills says that annual investment of up to £50m per year could deliver new training to boost innovation and productivity, enable industries to set new professional standards, or support new or extended National Skills Academies.
The investment fund – which will be delivered in partnership by the UK Commission for Employment and Skills (UKCES) and the Skills Funding Agency (SFA) – invites proposals from employer organisations, professional bodies and trade associations.
The National Motorcycle Museum plays host this week to The Low Carbon Best Practice Exchange, where anyone involved in carbon reduction initiatives for their organizations can get together to discuss best practices.
Attendees are likely to be aware of the new low-carbon finance scheme launched last week by the Carbon Trust and Siemens. The scheme will provide finance worth up to £550m over the next three years for businesses invest in cost-effective energy-efficiency equipment or other low-carbon technologies. Click here to read more.
Finally, Thursday marks the start of the Big Bang Fair at London’s Excel Centre.
Designed to celebrate and inspire science and engineering for young people, the event will host the finals of the National Science & Engineering Competition.
According to the organizers, 2010’s competition saw 349 competitors presenting 190 award-winning science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) projects.
This year sees three age categories: Junior (11-14); Intermediate (15-16); and Senior (17-18) compete for one individual and one team winner in each age category for the science/maths stream and for the engineering/technology stream.
The two individual winners in the senior category will be given the titles the UK Young Scientist of the Year and the UK Young Engineer of the Year.
Good luck to all involved.
Readers' comments (8)
brian m | 7 Mar 2011 12:53 pm
About time too! Wind energy is fine as a top up technology - as a primary renewable it's not a candidate.
Tidal is a different story, it's about as reliable as we can get - if the tides stop working then lack of electricity would be the least of our woes!
With some of the best tidal ranges in the world, we have massive amounts of predicable energy on our door step. Which for the most part is being ignored for the insane rush for wind power or blocked .
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Doug Taylor | 7 Mar 2011 2:32 pm
I really would like to know why so much money is being thrown at wind energy and not tidal/wave?
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Karen Lim | 8 Mar 2011 4:19 am
Finally! It's great news that tidal energy is getting featured as it is certainly more reliable than wind energy.
In addition, with the emergence of new tidal energy turbines which can generate electricity from moderate tidal movements, there is improved potential in harnessing this as a viable alternative energy resource compared to similar studies conducted over 20 years ago. I hope to see more investments in tidal power in the future.
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John R McCallum | 8 Mar 2011 8:04 am
Wind or water generation both suffer from the same problem - storage of surplus energy for a time when the wind dies, the tide is at its lowest etc. Generation equipment for tidal or wave technology is being built in near Glasgow with a larger base in Dalkeith and this is seen as a more reliable source, a wave is a wave and only vary due to wind conditions. If we could develop a storage system that could feedback into the system at a good recovery rate then this technology needs help too. I have read of cryogenic storage and release systems and this looks promising. The power generated during tidal flows or wind produced is used to store energy as liquified air or nitrogen and subsequently expanded to drive turbines when flows are low. The UK is surrounded by water, it is a resource in abundance, it is our alternative oil. Generation is good, storage and release need to be factors built in to any project.
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John Harrison | 8 Mar 2011 1:18 pm
I quite agree with the sentiments about tidal energy being underdeveloped in the UK. We have jumped on the bandwagon of wind energy, following the lead of other countries who do not have the vast tidal resources of the UK and who therefore need to concentrate their efforts on wind energy.
For those who see tidal energy needing storage facilities to balance peak demand with supply, high tide times vary around our shoreline. Providing there were enough tidal stations and they were strategically placed around our coastline, we could enjoy a reasonably constant power source that could be used as a green susbtitute for conventional base load power sources.
Corrosion resistance is one of the difficult issues to overcome when developing working tidal energy schemes. How is this when we are all told on a regular basis how long it takes for polymer products to decompose in our landfill sites? Surely polymer engineering is now capable of producing products that are strong and corrosion resistant enough to cope with tidal power schemes?
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Chris Wood | 9 Mar 2011 10:08 am
We are living on an island! We are surrounded by water!
Its about time the government put more funding into tidal and wave power than wind which has been jumped on by the large companies as the country's energy saviour - which it is not at all...
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Tom Bradbury | 9 Mar 2011 7:20 pm
I have long thought that tidal power coupled with large tidal resevoirs powering turbines during slack tides could provide continuous power genration rather than the hit & miss of wind & solar energy.
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Alex | 11 Mar 2011 1:34 pm
Tidal and wave have some great benefits but the technology is a few years behind wind (and not yet dominated by Germans and Chinese).
A question for numerate folk: If we were to put say, a capacity of 5GW (peak) in the Pentland Firth - that is to say, we extract all of the commercially available tidal resource and slow down the water going into and out of the North Sea - what would it do to the tidal range in the North Sea?
I estimate it could knock a few cm off the tidal range, which would negate the effect of rising sea levels on flooding in Eastern England.
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