[HN Gopher] Japan tested a giant turbine that generates electric... ___________________________________________________________________ Japan tested a giant turbine that generates electricity using deep ocean current Author : jdmark Score : 123 points Date : 2022-06-04 16:55 UTC (6 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.thesciverse.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.thesciverse.com) | beefman wrote: | 330 tons for 100 kW. Assuming it lasts 20 years (and assuming | that's short tons), it's about 17 metric tonnes per GWh. | Comparisons: http://lumma.org/energy/lca/ | isoprophlex wrote: | So, slightly better than offshore wind. No bad imo. | dukeofdoom wrote: | Out of sight, out of mind. The Ocean has been a dumping ground | for a long time. Do we know what kind of impact this might be | having where this might be built. Close to shore is where most of | the Ocean life resides due to more light reaching in the shallow | water. There were proposals to build wind turbines in the middle | on the Great Lakes. Not sure what happened to those. Maybe it can | be done so it improves the environment, but that tends to costs | more. | jonnycomputer wrote: | Ocean currents often carry a lot of life around the ocean | (https://www.cell.com/current- | biology/pdf/S0960-9822(17)30077...). Hesitation is warranted, | imo. | samwillis wrote: | For a data point, the UK has a large number of offshore wind | farms that contribute 13% of our electricity supply. On shore | is 11%. | | It's proving cost effective and sustainable. In some ways we | are fortunate as we have a long history of offshore engendering | with North Sea oil, the expertise there has translated well to | offshore wind. | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_offshore_wind_farms_in... | quantified wrote: | Hope those don't create whaleburger or giant squidburger. Which | will be out-of-sight-out-of-mind unlike the visible bird deaths | aboveground. | [deleted] | asien wrote: | France tried years ago. | | Incredibly expensive and inefficient. | | I love the concept but it just cant compete with Solar , Nuclear | or Fossil Fuel... | samwillis wrote: | Just because something has been "tried before" in the past for | something as critical as energy sustainability, particularly | with the backdrop of climate change, doesn't mean we shouldn't | try it again. If anything it puts us in a better position, with | grater knowledge, in order to improve are chances of making it | work. | | As Edison put it about trying to invent the lightbulb: "I | haven't failed - I've just found 10,000 that won't work". | g42gregory wrote: | The laws of physics would dictate that this energy would come | from somewhere. If enough power is generated, it will | significantly alter the ocean flows dynamics. Deep ocean flow | currents can very much affect the climate. Did anybody researched | that this would be Ok? | throwaway290 wrote: | Persistent deep ocean currents exist in large part thanks to | temperature gradients (cf. AMOC and thermohaline circulation). | Climate warming, melting ice and reducing these gradients, has | much more drastic effects on ocean currents (cf. Gulf Stream | weakening) than a turbine could ever have. | | Paradoxically, we would effectively be saving those currents | using a fraction of the energy in those currents themselves. | | Using these turbines would be a drop in the ocean and a smart | move if it helps us tackle the big offender. We should get on | it soon though, if we let it get to a point where thermohaline | circulation falls apart using currents this way may no longer | be an option. | mintyDijon wrote: | I aggree with the necessity of haste, but I hope these | turbines can be developed in a way to have minimal impact on | all the ocean life that uses these currents aswell, there's | already so much damage thats been done to the ocean | ecosystems already. | wcoenen wrote: | The same could be said about wind power. | | Ultimately, wind and ocean currents are driven by the 170,000 | terawatts of solar irradiance continuously hitting the | earth[1]. Human civilization uses about 17 terawatt[2], so we | still have a ways to go before we get in the same ballpark. | | (On the other hand, give it a few centuries of exponential | growth and let's see where we end up.) | | [1] https://news.mit.edu/2011/energy-scale-part3-1026 | https://www.theworldcounts.com/stories/current_world_energy_... | | [2] | https://www.theworldcounts.com/stories/current_world_energy_... | user3939382 wrote: | Just to point out, we would be harvesting a lot more than we | use because of inefficiencies in capturing, storage, and | transmission strategies. Also note that the amount we use is | lower than it would otherwise be if we had access to more | energy, industry is energy-constrained. | rootusrootus wrote: | In the case of something like PV, would that matter too | much? The inefficiency doesn't mean the rest is lost, just | that it stays in the local environment rather than get | transmitted away somewhere else on a wire. | omgwtfbyobbq wrote: | Pretty much. As an examples, in deserts, there can be a | modest increase in local IR radiation because of the | change in albedo from PV panels compared to sand, but the | overall decrease in IR from avoiding the CO2/etc | emissions of fossil fuel generation is much, much larger | than the local increase. | paulsutter wrote: | That 170,000 terawatts hitting earth is dwarfed by the 400 | trillion terawatts output by the sun, so we can always build | some fraction of a Dyson sphere if we start to run short with | the 170,000 | | The sooner we stop using these feeble fossil fuels the better | willis936 wrote: | Fantasy solutions don't work for real problems. We have the | capability to make real problems via terraforming. | hackernewds wrote: | Terraforming is a fantasy that won't work for real | problems | [deleted] | andai wrote: | >We have the capability to _make_ real problems via | terraforming. [emphasis mine] | Dylan16807 wrote: | Yes, they slightly misread, but it's a fair retort. | Terraforming is pretty fantasy, but it happens. | paulsutter wrote: | We're carbon (de-)terraforming the earth everyday on a | global scale, haven't you heard? It's very real | gibolt wrote: | A Dyson sphere is just as much fantasy as physics, true | of most of today's technology just 50 years ago. | | Solar and wind are needed today, but Starship could bring | launch costs down enough that some highly optimized space | solar panels with microwave power beaming could be viable | within a decade. | vbezhenar wrote: | Receiving energy that was not supposed for earth will | increase planet heat output (because electricity in the | end will heat things). Who knows how that would affect | the planet. | | The only way to preserve the Earth is smart planning, | reducing energy usage and moving industry to the space. | IMO Earth should be sanctuary for people to enjoy their | origins and for some rich people inevitably. Most people | should move to other planets or space objects where | pollution does not matter. | paulsutter wrote: | How would capturing the beamed energy on earth be any | easier than capturing sunlight directly? | | Maybe illuminate existing solar arrays during nighttime? | Any other energy receiver would be so far behind PV on | the price / manufacturing learning curve | Cthulhu_ wrote: | I believe the solar panel part, but not on the microwave | power beaming; has that been proven to work already? How | efficient is it? What is the effect on anything flying | through or being near where said microwaves are received? | | Solar panels in space is the believable part; rays of | concentrated energy being sent back to earth is what I'm | skeptical about. Besides, solar panels have a limited | lifetime; I don't believe space solar panels are a cost | effective solution to solving the energy crisis. | Tade0 wrote: | This idea keeps being brought up and people keep | reminding everyone that for all intents and purposes this | is the closest to a cartoon supervillain death ray that | we can create. | joebob42 wrote: | Why would we build a solar panel that has a microwave | emitter instead of just building a mirror? | Cthulhu_ wrote: | And with this one, currents - mainly ebb and flow - are | caused by the gravity of the moon pulling on the oceans. | | But yeah, it will have an effect; the other question to ask | is, how significant is this effect, and how does it compare | to other forms of power production, e.g. fossil fuels? | | The global warming caused by fossil fuels has a bigger effect | on the oceans; with decreasing salinity due to the melting of | ice caps / glaciers, the gulf stream is slowing down and will | eventually stop, causing distribution of heat across the | planet to stop, causing the northern seas to cool down and | the southern ones to heat up. | jccooper wrote: | I think this is targeting ocean currents, which are solar- | powered convection between the tropics and the poles, | rather than tidal currents. | jameshart wrote: | Tidal flows are a pretty massive energy reservoir - | basically you've got all the potential and kinetic energy | of the moon's orbit to draw from. That's (according to my | crude Wolfram Alpha based research) about 3e28J of kinetic | energy plus 7e28J of potential energy, for a total of 10^29 | Joules. Technically a non renewable resource, but you would | be hard pressed to make a dent in that energy budget with | any kind of human scale extraction project. | neatze wrote: | This with assumption that there is linear relation without | butterfly effects, even if there are negative effects, most | likely they are negligible when compared to green house | effect on the planet, my false intuition tells me that power | generation from wind and ocean currents would contribute to | planet cooling, no idea if electricity converted to work will | radiate heat faster into space then air and oceans passively. | syntaxing wrote: | True to a certain extent. People forget that Earth is not a | zero sum control volume. We get a crap ton of energy from the | Sun and the sun power most things on Earth in some shape or | form (minus matter formation or radioactive material). The | Earth uses around 23,900 terawatt-hours a year. The sun | generates about 430 quintillion kWh every hour. | kache_ wrote: | The energy harvested is only... a drop in the ocean :) | trebligdivad wrote: | Maybe that would be good! If hurricanes are powered by hot | seas, then removing energy from the seas has got to remove | energy from hurrcianes? | samwillis wrote: | Other people will explain why you are wrong to be concerned. | However your concern is indicative of the concerns of a | significant, potentially majority, of people. It shows how as a | society we don't do messaging about this sort of thing well | enough. I think thats an important take away. | politician wrote: | We do a bad job of explaining to residents of our dense | population centers how much energy is required to run their | city for a single day, where it comes from, and how much it | costs to produce. | fswd wrote: | The energy comes from the moon orbiting the earth. | Theoretically speaking, taking too much energy would cause the | moon to come crashing down to Earth. | anticensor wrote: | What about the compromise, the Moon in geostationary orbit: | would be great for broadcasters (no more broadcast | satellites, just plant antennas on the moon). | Dylan16807 wrote: | The tides are already transferring energy from the Earth to | the Moon, making it go higher over time. | | I suspect that adding more drag to the tides could either | boost this process or reduce it, depending on the timing of | the energy harvesting. | nradov wrote: | The energy in tidal currents comes both from the moon | orbiting the Earth, and from the Earth orbiting the sun. | (Technically other heavenly bodies also have some effect, but | it's negligible.) | Zababa wrote: | I've always wanted to have a bigger Moon, this might be a way | to achieve that. | samatman wrote: | This is like worrying that wind turbines will stop the wind. | | They won't. | enchiridion wrote: | No, it's asking a question about our knowledge of the scale | and power of the devices and forces involved. | | If it is a analog to wind turbines, the math will bear it | out, but it's a perfectly valid question to ask. | drieddust wrote: | Exactly just a few decades ago CFC was a non issue, Lead | caused no harm, smoking was good for health, and cocaine | was a refreshing drink. Yet here we are again so full of | ourselves that asking the question is unsettling. | politician wrote: | So we should keep doing the known harmful power | generation methods (coal) instead of experimenting with | new methods (deep sea turbines) out of a diffuse fear of | the unknown consequences? | | It's sad that this is such a common argument against | progress. Where do people learn to think this way? Does | it come from education? Failures in life? | mintyDijon wrote: | Have you ever heard the saying: | | "The grass is always greener on the otherside." | | I believe that's where this line of thinking comes from. | | Have you ever tried to change lanes because yours isn't | moving, just to find that right after you change to your | new lane it stops and your old lane picks up again? Man | that sucks | manigandham wrote: | Nobody said that. | | The concern is that more information should be discovered | about the effects, and that is usually done through | experimentation. | | > _"Where do people learn to think this way? "_ | | Where do people learn to create straw man arguments | instead of actually replying to what was said? | [deleted] | shiftpgdn wrote: | We're arguing semantics but on a big enough scale they would | eventually. That's why you don't just line up 100 of them | directly next to eachother. | mattnewton wrote: | Agree that this is effectively arguing semantics, and it is | taking energy from the wind. But the effect of each _is_ | very small. There are definitely farms with >100 turbines | close together. This one has >600 and has long runs of them | close together. | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alta_Wind_Energy_Center | weaksauce wrote: | while that one produces more electricity, this one has | about twice as many turbines in close proximity: https:// | en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Gorgonio_Pass_wind_farm | throw457 wrote: | kube-system wrote: | Flowing water has insane amounts of energy even in tiny | amounts. I would imagine that this affects ocean currents as | little or less than wind turbines affect weather patterns. | Mindless2112 wrote: | "It's so vast that small human actions couldn't possibly have | an impact" is literally the same wrong-headed reasoning that | leads people to believe that human CO2 emissions don't | matter. | | There seems to have been a lot of extreme weather in recent | years. Could it be because harvesting energy from the wind | alters weather patterns? A lot of people would rather just | blame it on global warming than ask a question that might | expose a flaw in our plans to wean ourselves off of fossil | fuels. | | We need to have bit more humility and a bit less dogma about | what we "know". | Dylan16807 wrote: | The reason CO2 emissions matter so much is that they | accumulate over time. | | > There seems to have been a lot of extreme weather in | recent years. Could it be because harvesting energy from | the wind alters weather patterns? A lot of people would | rather just blame it on global warming than ask a question | that might expose a flaw in our plans to wean ourselves off | of fossil fuels. | | Do you have anything other than wild speculation? Because | in most cases slowing down air currents should calm the | weather. | | And _of course_ this has been asked! | jeffbee wrote: | The mechanism by which CO2 raises the steady-state | temperature of the atmosphere is well understood, and it is | not because of the awesome power of CO2, it is because the | Sun is incredibly energetic. | | By contrast, there is no known way that wind power | extraction, which is currently < 1TW globally, could | possibly be destabilizing the energy system of the rotation | of the Earth (which is what causes wind). That system | contains ten billion times more kinetic energy than we | remove from it annually. | | The amount of kinetic energy the moon removes from the | Earth's rotational kinetic energy every year is larger, and | has been going on for a long, long time, so if it was going | to cause fire weather that would already have been a long- | standing problem. | | In short, the amount of CO2 that humans have dumped into | the atmosphere in the last 200 years is comparable to the | amount that was in there to begin with. It can't be | ignored. But the amount of energy we remove from the wind | is nine or ten orders of magnitude smaller than the total | amount that exists, and therefore it _can_ be ignored. | tomc1985 wrote: | I don't think we will ever see power generation via | renewables (one industry) approach the scale of anything | near carbon emissions (all industry) | | You could do some very basic napkin math multiplying the | air displacement per turbine (or whatever metric you | choose) and multiplying by every turbine that exists, and | I'd bet that number would be nowhere near total air | displacement from natural causes. | | Human CO2 emissions matter precisely because the math has | exceeded change from natural causes. And this happens | because _literally everyone_ is doing it. IF we cover the | planet in wind turbines the same way we cover it with waste | C02 then _maybe_ you might have a case. | | Not to say renewables aren't without their issues. There | are likely a whole host of second- and third-order issues | there that have yet to be discovered, let alone resolved. | But we would need adoption on a scale far beyond what has | been proposed to combat global warming to approach that. | Mindless2112 wrote: | I'm not saying that CO2 and wind turbines have a | comparable effect on the climate. I'm saying that "it's | small so it couldn't matter" is the same flawed thinking. | | > _Human CO2 emissions matter precisely because the math | has exceeded change from natural causes._ | | Why? It's the significant detrimental impact of the human | activity that's important, not how it compares to the | amount or change from natural causes. (It doesn't even | matter that it's human activity. If Earth were going to | become inhospitable by entirely natural causes, that | would still matter.) | | > _then maybe you might have a case._ | | I'm not making the case that wind turbines are harming | the environment; that's just the example at hand. I'm | making the case that casually dismissing (questions | about) the potential impact of human activities is wrong. | baybal2 wrote: | Is this out of the same ballpark as "thermal powerplants will | boil the atmosphere." | | The entire humankind's power consumption is completely | microscopic in comparison to any natural weather phenomena. | | We are 0.0000000000001% of energy the Earth dissipates. | satokema wrote: | the other way around is also true, the climate affects the | flows | | seems like an interesting possibility to recapture some of the | loose climate energy that we want to pare down | fasteo wrote: | The same can be said about solar panels. An enormous amount of | heat is no longer hitting the ground. | libraryatnight wrote: | How significant a difference is it that previously it was | hitting my roof? | Klinky wrote: | The same can be said about humans. An enormous amount of heat | is no longer hitting the ground due to man-made structures in | general, way more than dedicated solar farms. Very likely | putting solar on roofs is more beneficial than letting it | just heat up tiles/shingles, while the building shades the | ground. You're basically arguing against building | civilization. However, I think human's effects on ecosystems | is worthy of investigating, but the "solar panels blocking | ground heat" concern seems very tangential and likely | insignificant compared to the concerns of human's overall | impacts on micro/macro environments. | deepsun wrote: | It mostly comes from the Sun. It spews so much energy at Earth | that all humanity consumption doesn't make a dent in it. | slight_glitch wrote: | I like the answers to your questions here. I wonder if in 100 | years or so, our energy consumption won't be what 640K of | memory (enough for anybody?) was around 1980. Time will tell if | it will be a drop in the ocean then. | photochemsyn wrote: | This is such a tediously nonsensical interjection: | | _...laying the groundwork for a promising new source of | renewable energy that isn 't dependent on sunny days or strong | winds._ | | How many times does it need to be said that any reliable energy | system run entirely on sunlight and wind absolutely has to | incorporate storage? Storage can be electrical (short-term | supercapacitors for buffering high-frequency variations in | windfarms), electrochemical (batteries, and since portability is | not an issue, there are many options for grid-storage batteries | besides lithium), chemical (using electrical current to drive the | formation of hydrocarbons from CO2 and water, aka artificial | photosynthesis, and similar conversions), or mechanical (pumped | water storage, rotating heavy masses, air pressure in caverns, | etc.). That about covers the range of storage options I think. | | I don't know what to think about people that trot that one out | over and over again but to be charitable I'll just assume gross | ignorance at this point, rather than deliberate deception. | lostmsu wrote: | You are clearly in wrong here. There's a reliable energy system | run entirely on sunlight, that is basically identical to the | proposed deep ocean currents in the principle: hydropower. In | short: the storage is built-in - it is in the potential energy | of that small percentage of the water in the oceans, which is | still large enough to be absolutely immense. | [deleted] | zdragnar wrote: | Because incorporating storage into the story also means brining | in the cost. Many of the solutions are not cheap, dependent on | specific geology, and / or have their own large carbon | footprint. | | The only thing that solar and wind bring to the table is being | very cheap, but you need to compare apples to oranges for them | to stand up to other solutions. | | Edit: this is regional specific, but wind and solar are | worthless for one to two months a year where I live - rarely | much sun or wind. There's simply not enough storage to power | much of anything for that long, so even with cheap storage, | it's worth having options that don't rely on weather. | | Of course, we are nowhere even close to an ocean, so this tech | isn't it, but keeping exploring options is nice. | certifiedloud wrote: | Storage is kind of the major blocker for those technologies | currently. | _ph_ wrote: | Most countries (if not all?) are still far from the point | where storage "blocks" solar/wind. But moving forward, more | storage will be needed. And I am quite optimistic that it | will be there as soon there is enough energy to store in the | first place. Some of it will come anyway, as electric cars | make for great storage. Switching cars to electric doesn't | only directly reduce CO2 emissions, they are a great way of | storing surplus electricity and also drive the cost for | battery storage down. | potatochup wrote: | Related, underwater tidal turbines in the Cook Straight, NZ | https://www.sustainableseaschallenge.co.nz/our-research/ener... | mensetmanusman wrote: | This energy partly comes from moon-earth oscillations. | adtac wrote: | Since geothermal, is this the first form of energy that is not | even indirectly from the sun? | hollerith wrote: | No, we also generate some electricity from tides. | windows2020 wrote: | During onboarding, the CEO told a story about how an employee's | logic error caused a manufacturing plant to shutdown for hours. | They of course corrected it, and production resumed, but the | company was on the hook for millions in lost revenue. | | Later that evening, the employee got a call from the CEO. | | "I suppose you're calling to let me go." | | The CEO replied, "Why would I do that after paying for a million | dollar lesson?" | | That's how I feel about nuclear. | samwillis wrote: | In 200 years when the planet is on fire our ancestors will look | at us and won't understand how we could have made such bad | decisions. Yes, there is a (tiny) risk of nuclear disaster that | makes an area uninhabitable, but thats (in my view) better than | the whole plant eventually become so. | | (I very much hope this statement is hyperbolic) | brazzy wrote: | It's simply a false dichotomy that we have the choice between | committing to nuclear energy generation, or catastrophic | climate change. | | We don't _need_ nuclear energy. We really, really don 't. | Cthulhu_ wrote: | It's a tradeoff in the end, because the current generation | of renewable energy is so much more expensive and involved | than the equivalent in a nuclear energy plant. | | I mean in my country, the energy grid is at capacity due to | increases in demand AND production. It's very attractive to | get solar panels installed on your house, but the grid | cannot handle the influx of new production. | | Whereas attaching a new nuclear plant to the main grid | would be less of a headache. | brazzy wrote: | >the current generation of renewable energy is so much | more expensive and involved than the equivalent in a | nuclear energy plant. | | This may have been true 15 or even 10 years ago, but | nowadays the exact opposite is the case. | | > It's very attractive to get solar panels installed on | your house, but the grid cannot handle the influx of new | production. Whereas attaching a new nuclear plant to the | main grid would be less of a headache. | | How is that supposed to make any sense at all? The grid | likes nuclear-flavored power better? | bradlys wrote: | In order to avoid catastrophic climate change (hard to say | we even can at this point) - we _need_ anything we can get. | Nuclear is part of anything we can get. | Gwypaas wrote: | Following that line of reasoning. Considering we get 3-6x | as much energy investing in renewables compared to | nuclear then a single cent in invested into nuclear is an | enabler of climate change right? | bradlys wrote: | You're using a false equivalency fallacy though - that | economics matter at all in this. | | We _need_ anything to get us to lower GHG emissions - | regardless of cost. | Gwypaas wrote: | Of course it matters. Money and people available to do | the work is not infinite. Or do you disagree? | | Therefore we have to optimize for the most impact | possible. Is spending 3x as much as off-shore wind and 6x | as much as on-shore optimizing for impact? Can straight | up honestly claim that? | samwillis wrote: | My issue is really the lack of progress with and | utilisation of Nuclear over the last 40-50 years. In my | opinion the anti nuclear movement resulted in extending | the time we continued to burn coal. Quite right, at the | moment the larger impact would be with renewables. | However my original comment was not only in reference to | decisions we are making now but also those of the last 50 | years. If we had concentrated on using Nuclear, and not | succumbed to the fear about it, we would be in a much | stronger position now than we are. | Gwypaas wrote: | It is simply economics. The anti-nuclear movement is | insignificant but a very handy scapegoat. If nuclear made | sense on a cost basis it would have pushed through | somewhere globally. It's quite telling that not even | authoritarian states, or very centrally controlled like | France have managed that. | | I agree that nuclear would have been preferable to fossil | energy. But today renewables is way cheaper than either | alternative. | bradlys wrote: | You're using very poor arguments. A lot of whataboutism. | | A meteor is coming to destroy the entire world. Do you | sit around and wonder, "Is spending money on this really | in the best interest of our shareholders for this | quarter?" | Gwypaas wrote: | Consider your example. You have two options proven to | work by prior knowledge. Either renewables or nuclear at | 3-6x the cost. What do you pick? | | There's a statement in the previous paragraph doing most | of the heavy lifting: "proven to work". This means no | risk, why double invest? | | We've already diverted meteors using both renewables and | nuclear. Both work. Choose the cheaper option since it's | not an one off event, it's an incremental change. | | Every nuclear plant or wind turbine is negligible in | itself. But the effect is quantifiable and known. | liketochill wrote: | A robust electricity grid needs a variety of energy | sources, wind and solar are great until it isn't windy or | sunny for a week. Are week long outages acceptable to | you? Not to me. It is not inconceivable that a weather | system results in calm weather with clouds for an | extended period of time. | | So other energy sources are necessary. Nuclear is another | practical low carbon energy source and it is worth | considering as part of the energy mix. There are many | nuclear plants operating and under construction in the | world. That they are uneconomic in some countries speaks | more to those countries than to nuclear. | Gwypaas wrote: | 1. Geographical decoupling. HVDC connections are barely | even newsworthy anymore. | | 2. Smart consumers. Electrified transports are perfect | where you can shift the charging to any point in time | it's not actively driven. This without having to pay the | round trip efficiency loss since charging the battery is | valuable work. | | 3. Better utilize hydro to compensate for the last bits | of intermittency left. | | We're so far from a grid where large scale storage would | be necessary that dwelling over it and putting forth | nuclear as the only solution is ridiculous. You could | make hydrogen from your renewable energy and then later | burn it and still come out ahead of nuclear. That's how | uncompetetive nuclear is. | Dylan16807 wrote: | Does that include the batteries we'd need to have | renewables take over the grid? | | But we should be dumping lots of research dollars into | both, even if we want 95% of the construction budget to | be renewables. | | Except scaling up starts to cost a lot more when you push | it too fast, so we probably should be spending more than | 5% on nuclear because it can work in parallel. | [deleted] | ruined wrote: | sometimes the lesson is "don't concentrate radioactive | isotopes, you haven't developed the institutional incentives to | contain them reliably, and will eventually experience terrible | disaster" | dctoedt wrote: | > _The CEO replied, "Why would I do that after paying for a | million dollar lesson?"_ | | That's a variation of something supposedly said by IBM's Thomas | J. Watson, Sr.: "Recently, I was asked if I was going to fire | an employee who made a mistake that cost the company $600,000. | No, I replied, I just spent $600,000 training him. Why would I | want somebody to hire his experience?" [0] | | [0] https://blog.4psa.com/quote-day-thomas-john-watson-sr-ibm/ | (which doesn't include a source for the quote) | mrexroad wrote: | Hmm, a few years late per SeaQuest's timeline... I just hope we | have a SeaQuest 4600 class sub handy to sacrifice in order to | plug the lava flow when the turbines cause the ocean floor to | break apart! | | Ironically, in the SeaQuest timeline, SeaQuest DSV itself would | have been abducted by an alien ship just a few weeks ago. Maybe | there's still hope that Mark Hamill is actually our first contact | with an alien species? | | Makes me want to go rewatch 90's sci-fi: Babylon 5, Space Above & | Beyond, SeaQuest (season 1 at least), TekWar, TimeTrax, etc. | xen2xen1 wrote: | Space Above and Beyond is very underrated. Still sad it only | got one season. If they wanted to redo something they could | chose something much worse. It might be a little too pro- | American and pro-military for 2022? | tomc1985 wrote: | The ending of the pancakes episode is still one of my | favorite moments of 90s TV ever | swayvil wrote: | What are the upsides/downsides of water currents vs air currents | here? | | Is one more consistent than the other? | | I imagine that water has more chunks to filter. | | Water requires a smaller turbine. | | ..? | Qworg wrote: | Water carries (IIRC) ~375x the energy of air per speed/unit | volume. | | Depending on the turbine design, you don't need to filter | anything. The currents (gyre power) are far more consistent | than wind turbines. | | If not for the difficulties of siting, permitting, and | maintaining subsea equipment, gyre power systems are far | superior. | Gwypaas wrote: | Another company in a similar space, although focused on tidal | currents is Minesto. | | The problem with wind vs. water is the extreme harshness of the | environment. The only industry which has truly manage to tame | the ocean is the oil and gas industry, and that at huge costs | offset by the high value of what they produce. Not likely we | will ever see anything like that in the renewable field. | | No affiliation but an old colleague works there so see them pop | up from time to time | | https://minesto.com/ | belorn wrote: | Salt, water, very strong forces, and a lot of things want to | stick to it and build up layers of sand and organic material. | And getting trained professionals that can operate in that | environment is costly, slow and dangerous. | | Beyond those, are there any additional problems from the | environment? | Gwypaas wrote: | The places with strong tidal currents have a tendency of | limiting construction to ebb and high tide, in other words | lot of expensive waiting around. | | Regarding the environment, under the sea it is quite fine | compared to stationary platforms operating in the north sea | or Mexican gulf(hurricanes) year around, so that should be | easier. | bobthepanda wrote: | Water is stronger than air. This is a double edged sword; IIRC | most tidal power projects have failed because the greater wear | and tear is worse than the additional power generated. I would | imagine the deep ocean magnifies this problem. | | Not to mention, we do enough environmental damage to our oceans | as it is. | samwillis wrote: | Predictability, with tidal power you know exactly (more or | less) how much you will generate every moment of every day. | zwayhowder wrote: | I've seen companies use wave energy before (1) but not ocean | currents, but as someone else pointed out, the currents are a | lot more powerful and consistent than winds so it makes sense. | | I know Carnegie (2) talk up the fact that submerged equipment | very rarely gets damaged by storms etc compared to floating or | land based systems. (As long as they can keep fishing trawlers | away and ban boat anchors in the area.). | | 1: https://www.offshore-energy.biz/carnegie-preps-new-ceto- | desi... 2: https://www.carnegiece.com/ | gehsty wrote: | The turbines are very interesting, these demonstrator projects | seek to answer questions like how do you even make one, how do | you install it and how do you maintain it... a very interesting | piece of hardware required to scale this up (in deep water | anyway!) is a subsea substation to up the voltage from the array | to export voltages... | cmroanirgo wrote: | The article mentioned 100-160ft from the surface, so i'm not | sure where the "deep" part mentioned in the headlines comes in. | Perhaps their ultimate plan is for deep & this demo didn't try | to address the deep part? That said, if 100ft below had enough | forces to produce 100kw (ecological issues aside) that sounds | pretty fantastic, even if just a demo. | martyvis wrote: | I imagine the "deep" aspect is that it seems to be well below | surface waves that seem to reek havoc on other projects. That | depth is still pretty difficult to service as install without | pretty sophisticated planning I would think. | nothingisconvex wrote: | suyash wrote: | Kudos to Japanese scientists, always pushing the boundaries! | mrfusion wrote: | Could this disrupt the migrations of species like clown fish and | sea turtles? | rnjesus wrote: | even if it does, all they have to do is just keep swimming | sieabahlpark wrote: ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-06-04 23:00 UTC)