sibeen said:
sarahs mum said:
party_pants said:
Yes. Renewable energy and value added mineral and metal exports made from renewable energy. I dream about it every day.
I keep on thinking about Bass strait. I saw a presentation at Tas Museum (TMAG) that demonstrated the power of the rush of the tide through the strait. Perhaps I think about it because of a lack of understanding. But my time on Cape barren island was all amazement about the tide going out so far and then rushing back in. Maybe not as much as Solway Forth but that kind of thing. They have planted wind turbines in a row across King Island and I presume this is in anticipation of them deciding they will Basslink 2. But it does make me wonder if this is not a great place to trial some water turbine arrays like they are doing off shore in Scotland.
Mostly they fail at the trial stage, sm. Salt water just stuffs the engineering. I don’t know of a tidal scheme that has come close to being viable. Doesn’t stop a lot of mobs getting government subsidies and trying again whilst paying themselves some quite hefty consulting fees.
Interesting that you say that salt water stuffs the engineering. I would have thought that that problem had been well and truly solved by now, using paint techniques used for rust prevention of cars, or using stainless alloys or nickel-chrome alloys. Engineering has been successful in environments that are far more destructive than that, eg. jet engines.
I’ve seen a few proposals for tidal power, and even worked out how to get near-uniform power out of them (as opposed to zero power when the internal and external water heights match), but most of the tidal power projects mess with the coastline.
I still have a soft spot for wave power using the Salter duck. For instance, instead of having harbours protected by breakwaters, have them protected by ducks.
