Peak Energy - Tapping source of power from oceans

Interesting blog covering range of topics including some tidal ideas - although loading on this tidal flow structure must be immense.

Tidal Power - Woodshed Technologies Ltd, TGL and other links

Info mainly sourced from websites.......

CleanTechCom Limited is a Scottish registered company formed in 2006 by John Griffiths and Steve Hastings. This company is today wholly owned by Woodshed Technologies Limited.

They are involved in the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) Severn Embryonic Technologies Scheme (SETS) funded support into Severn Tidal Fence through the Severn Tidal Fence Consortium.

The STF Consortium is headed by IT Power. CleanTechCom has brought additional co-financing to the study, which is also supported by technical expertise from Marubeni (Europe), Metoc, NaREC, BMT Fleet Technology, Edinburgh University, and Sigma Offshore.

"Woodshed Technologies Limited develops and commercialises "clean" innovations in and acquires and grows businesses in three critical industries, or human endeavours, that so greatly define the quality of humanity's ongoing day-to-day existence.

Energy
Modern humanity cannot get enough of it. Focusing on renewable energy sources and improving what exists in fossil fuel technologies. Energy conservation devices. Next generation thermal insulation.
Water
Earth's most precious physical resource. Potable water stocks are under stress or unavailable. Water recycling, re-use, capture, storage and de-salination technologies.
Transport
Do it cleaner and better. Next generation technologies."

"Marine Current Turbines Limited - SeaGen is the name given to the 1.2MW tidal energy convertor that was installed in Strangford Lough in April 2008. Sea Generation Ltd is the project company which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Marine Current Turbines Ltd. SeaGen has been licensed for a maximum installed duration of 5 years.
Marine Current Turbines Ltd have been operating the 300kW Seaflow tidal energy system at Lynmouth, Devon since May 2003 and are recognised as being one of the worlds leading tidal energy system developers."

(pictured from Wiki Commons Commercial tidal stream generator — SeaGen — in Strangford Lough. The strong wake shows the power in the tidal current.)

Verdant Power - Kinetic Hydropower System (KHPS)

SETsquared Partnership
"SETsquared is a collaboration between the universities of Bath, Bristol, Southampton and Surrey which partners in enterprise activities and collectively supports the growth and success of new business opportunities through spin-outs, licensing and incubation. The Partnership also works with industry through research collaboration and consultancy."

Tidal Generation Limited (TGL)
"Tidal Generation Limited was set up in 2005 by a team that has been involved in the tidal energy industry since its inception. TGL's staff had key roles in the first successful UK tidal turbine project, led by IT Power Limited and installed in 2003.

TGL Activity
TGL has a five year technology development programme from prototype through to commercial product. Feasibility and concept design phases of our programme are complete and established that their technology has the potential for a significant cost advantage over most offshore marine renewables currently under development.

We are now working with project partners to complete the detailed design and install a 500kW machine at the European Marine Energy Centre in the Orkney Islands. Work has been supported by the South West Regional Development Agency, the Scottish Executive and the Technology Programme. Our project partners are Rolls-Royce plc, SLP Engineering Ltd, BAM Ritchies and Garrad Hassan & Partners Ltd."

Meeting Essentials - good practice

PLAN
Make sure your meeting has
- a purpose and is necessary
- the right people - who need to be there
- an agenda in advance - with clear timings including the start and end times++
- people with clear roles for chairing, note taking and time keeping

DO
Meetings must
- start on time
- have action points recorded and distributed promptly
- stop when the purpose is achieved
- lead to positive, timely action and outcomes

CHECK and ACT
Individually we can all help :
- Arrive 5 mins early
- Be committed and involved – use our values
- Keep the meeting on topic – all other things are offline
- Leave the room as you would expect to find it

Learning - chinese proverb

"Tell me and I'll forget;

show me and I may remember;

involve me and I'll understand."

Alternative ....in terms of Personal Learning Journals

I hear and I forget

I see and I remember

I write and I understand

UK - Blake's Parliamentary Year Book 2010 - "All Change" rail editorial

Editorial written in March 2009.

photos from top

1. St Pancras station

# southeastern highspeed snaps

2.Chatham Station - May 2009 (not in service!)

3. Ebbsfleet International Station - August 2009

Southeastern is owned by Govia, which is itself jointly owned by Go-Ahead Group and Keolis, who also operate the neighbouring Southern operating company which overlaps with Southeastern in some areas. The company’s formal name, under which it mounted its bid for the franchise, is London and South Eastern Railway.

In turn Keolis in Nov 2009 was majority owned by 3i.

NTNON Gramophone (not quite SPIN selling - click here))

......What do I do with my old 78s?

SPIN stands for Situation, Problem, Implication, Needs

NTNON = Not the Nine O'clock News

Magnetic boards over Skype

Each section is printed on magnetic A4 paper

Risk headings - aide memoire

EXTERNAL RISK SOURCES
Political
Economic/Markets - Financial and monetary
Social
Technological
Environmental/Ethical
Legal

INTERNAL RISK SOURCES
Systems
Security
Structure
Strategy
Skills & Staff
Style & Shared Values (Culture)

Cold calling emails

Personalisation and context
Focus: emphasis is on the value for reader, making it worth reading.

A call to action: suggests action to contact to set up a call; a self-confident approach that can contrast with impression given with more desperate overtones in an email.

Clear language: well written and error freetaking the time to care, which makes reader feel more respected

Thinking

A great many people may think that they are thinking; however, most are merely rearranging their prejudices.

Energy requirements of different forms of passenger transport.

more Sustainable Energy - without the hot air David JC MacKay
Figure 20.23. Energy requirements of different forms of passenger transport. The vertical coordinate shows the energy consumption in kWh per 100 passenger-km. The horizontal coordinate indicates the speed of the transport. The “Car (1)” is an average UK car doing 33 miles per gallon with a single occupant. The “Bus” is the average performance of all London buses. The “Underground system” shows the performance of the whole London Underground system. The catamaran is a diesel-powered vessel. I’ve indicated on the left-hand side equivalent fuel efficiencies in passenger-miles per imperial gallon (p-mpg).Hollow point-styles show best-practice performance, assuming all seats of a vehicle are in use. Filled point-styles indicate actual performance of a vehicle in typical use.See also figure 15.8 (energy requirements of freight transport).

Analysts: 'The recession has ended'; the continuing revolution

I really don't think we have seen the full impact of the major structural changes that are continuing to be necessary to address issues arising from the internet and climate change; reduced transaction costs impacting on supply and demand challenged through optimising/prioritising energy and water use.

During the 'debt decade', as I believe we are stuck in, we will have to learn to severely curtail our expenditure to pay off the excess of the past, and that may help us set off on the right path. It is going to mean a radical change in leadership, expectations and behaviour to make sure the UK pulls through which I'm not sure many of us fully realise and the government its really in a position to be too open about.

For me we need to be really taking out waste in the economy - including excessive consumerism, inefficient energy cycles and unfettered long distance travel - plus we need to put more detailed thought into the full life cycle cost of assets and services. At the same, we have processes and organisations which need radical overhaul; e.g. aspects of local government which is by anyone's measure in need of becoming more efficient and effective and simpler to access.

This implies revolutionary change in employment models, forms of employment itself, our use of transport modes and in our wider economic activity internally and globally. We are ill prepared for this change as we know as little about the direction of travel and the means to get there as people did at the start of the industrial revolution!

The good news is that I believe the UK has many strengths in our favour;
- a temperate maritime climate in a relative benign region free from material, sudden climatic and seismic events
- a reasonably secure source of potential future energy and fresh water supply
- a free-ish market based and educated democracy that values participation in society
- being on a naturally attractive and fertile island!

Memory tips - DOMINIC O'BRIEN'S

The three pillars to learning are

1. good memory techniques, one memory technique for languages is "gender zones". Visualise feminine nouns such as "la cantina" (cellar) in your home or home town; masculine nouns such as "il campo" (field) elsewhere
2. speed reading and to improve speed reading, use a pointer such as a pen to trace along the lines as you read
3. note-taking take effective notes, make mind maps from key words and crystallise original notes down to helpful reminders

If you learn something new, review it within 24 hours to help lodge it in your memory

RSA David Eagleman 21 April - The Brain and the Law

Dr David Eagleman considers some emerging questions relating to law and neuroscience, challenging long-held assumptions in criminality and punishment and predicting a radical new future for the legal system.

www.neulaw.org

RSA James Boyle 10 March The Public Domain: enclosing the commons of the mind

Event: Social Brain.
Professor James Boyle, Duke University, argues that our culture, science and economic welfare all depend on a delicate balance between intellectual property and the public domain.

Persuasive Text

Customer Benefits
Affinity with customer needs
Technical Solutions
Evidence you can do it

Leveraging successful partnerships to win and manage major projects

Various Reports & Papers

NCE Scottish Transport Conference (2009)
Planning Cycle (2008)
BP (2008)
European PPP Business Network 20 November (2007)
DD 1 (2003)
DD 2 (2003)
Aston MBA Paper - Spanish rail opportunity (2002)
ICE Experience Report (2001)
ICE Project Report (2001)
Mersey Barrage Paper (Tidal Power) (1992)

Confidence, Clarity, Compliance and Competitiveness - key ingredients in winning

Evaluators look for the following in tender submissions
confidence
- this comes across in the language used
clarity
- is about keeping the message simple and relating to their requirements
compliance
- is vital and can only be achieved by ATFQ both accurately and fully (whilst also following the guidelines in an ITT which may seek that the structure of each response includes 'Benefits', Challenges' and' Evidence'
competitiveness
-In addition to the above, it is also vital to be 'competitive' by including what is better about OUR proposal over that of our competitors'. Always remember the strengths and weaknesses of having an incumbent position

Readability index - aide Memoire

Readability Index (RI); average sentence length (ASL) + % long words.

Target technical tender submissions 30-35; FT 41, Sun <20.

ASL = {no of words} ÷ {no of sentences}; e.g. 650 ÷ 20 = 32

%LW = {no of words 3 syllables or more} ÷ {no of words}*100; e.g. 108 ÷ 650 x 100 = 17

RI = ASL + %LW; e.g. 32 + 17 = 49

NB Strictly the Gunning Fox Index is then calculated by multiplying this by 0.4 which is meant to indicate how many years of formal education needs to read this with ease. On line tool available.

Defence. Investment Appraisal Board (IAB)

(extract from 2001)
The Investment Appraisal Board is responsible for central scrutiny of equipment requirements, major capital works and Information Technology projects. It makes recommendations to Ministers on the procurement of major defence equipment.


The IAB is

• chaired by the Chief Scientific Adviser (CSA) and includes
• the Vice Chief of the Defence Staff (VCDS),
• 2nd Permanent Secretary (2PS),
• Chief of Defence Procurement (CDP) and
• Chief of Defence Logistics (CDS), reflecting the key Departmental stakeholders.

Professor Mark Welland FRS FREng is busy in his new role as MOD Chief Scientific Adviser.

Google Powermeter

Google.org home Energy Information Home Smarter Power What We're Doing Demo Project FAQs Work with Us Energy Saving Tips Join the mailing list:

What Google is Doing Google PowerMeter, now in prototype, will receive information from utility smart meters and energy management devices and provide anyone who signs up access to her home electricity consumption right on her iGoogle homepage. The graph below shows how someone could use this information to figure out how much energy is used by different household activites. Analyze: Get better information about how you use energy and what you can do to be more efficient. Save: Reduce your energy bills and carbon footprint by making smart decisions about your energy use. Share: Strike up a little friendly competition to see how your energy consumption compares to your friends and neighbors.

The Conservatives' plan for a 'Green technology recovery'

George Osborne has set out a series of measures that could be introduced in next week’s Budget and would bring about a green technology revolution in Britain.

The Shadow Chancellor stressed, “The Budget is not just an opportunity to help people now; it’s also a chance to chart a new course for the future.”

And he outlined a series of policies to “kick-start a green recovery” built on new technologies developed and manufactured in Britain:

• A £6,500 energy efficient entitlement for every home in Britain
• Funding at least three carbon capture and storage pilots (2)
• The introduction of feed-in tariffs (4) and smart meters (3) to encourage homes to microgenerate using wind turbines and solar power
• A national recharging network for electric vehicles (5)
• Beginning work on a new high-speed rail network (6)
• Investing in the creation of an electricity internet (7)
• Providing government loan guarantees to companies investing in green technologies
• Creating the world’s first environmental trading market
• Introducing a network of Marine Energy Parks
• Building an offshore DC cable network (10)

George stressed their plan “could transform Britain”: “It would unleash £30 billion of new private sector investment, without adding a penny to the national debt. It would lay the path to a greener future. And it would help build a future economy where we save and invest for tomorrow instead of borrow and spend for today.”

Download their plans for 'A Green Technology Recovery'

More detail

2. Fund at least three Carbon Capture and Storage projects The Government should announce that it will use part of its receipts from the EU Emissions trading Scheme to fund the installation of Carbon Capture and Storage equipment and pipeline networks for at least 5GW of new coal-fired power plant. Gordon Brown has failed to grasp the CCS opportunity, by only running one slow and narrowly defined pilot project and passing up any real chance of industry leadership by green-lighting more unabated coal power to be merely 'CCS ready'.

3. Smart Meters Bring forward the roll out of innovative new technology smart meters into every home to give homes and businesses more control over their energy consumption and help reduce bills. These smart meters will allow the public to monitor the energy consumption of their appliances in real time, and compare their energy usage with similar homes.

4. Bring forward the introduction of Feed in Tariffs Bring forward the introduction of feed in tariffs for both renewable electricity and heat, as proposed by Conservatives and as already legislated for in the Energy Act. The revenue stream from these tariffs will help people lower their energy bills and give the long term market certainty that homes and businesses need to secure finance.

5. Create a national recharging network for electric vehicles. By designating electric vehicle recharging points as regulated assets, introduce incentives for energy companies to invest ahead of need and establish a new recharging network across the UK. This will enable Britain to lead the world in replacing traditional cars with electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles.

6. Begin work on a new high speed rail network The Government should adopt Conservative plans for to build a new high speed rail network, initially between London, Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds - with the private sector finance making a contribution towards the cost of the project.

7. Invest in the creation of an electricity internet It is time to bring our electricity grid out of the 1950’s by adding computing intelligence through the introduction of a smart grid, allowing demand and supply to be intelligently managed and paving the way for large-scale use of renewable energy sources.

10. Build an offshore DC cable network Require the National Grid to construct a new network of under-sea Direct Current (DC) cables, which will run like bootlaces down each side of the British coastline, allowing offshore renewable developments to access the electricity grid. This will reduce one of the primary cost raising risks for offshore wind and marine power.

Examples of private sector investment triggered by these measures:

• £20 billion: If 1 million homes per year over the next 10 years were retrofitted with an average of £2,000 of energy efficiency improvements.
  
• £5 billion: Private sector investment to build a new high speed rail link, in conjunction with government funding. .
  
• £3 billion: Private sector investment in carbon-captured coal fired power stations, made possible by government carbon capture and storage projects and networks, funded from the proceeds of the EU ETS.
  
• £2 billion: Installation of smart meters in every home.
  

Tidal Power - David JC MacKay; the beauties of tide

extracted from http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/withouthotair/c14/page_87.shtml

Beauties of tide

Totting everything up, the barrage, the lagoons, and the tidal stream farms could deliver something like 11 kWh/d per person (figure 14.10).

Tide power has never been used on an industrial scale in Britain, so it’s hard to know what economic and technical challenges will be raised as we build and maintain tide-turbines – corrosion, silt accumulation, entanglement with flotsam? But here are seven reasons for being excited about tidal power in the British Isles.

1. Tidal power is completely predictable; unlike wind and sun, tidal power is a renewable on which one could depend; it works day and night all year round; using tidal lagoons, energy can be stored so that power can be delivered on demand.

2. Successive high and low tides take about 12 hours to progress around the British Isles, so the strongest currents off Anglesey, Islay, Orkney and Dover occur at different times from each other; thus, together, a collection of tide farms could produce a more constant contribution to the electrical grid than one tide farm, albeit a contribution that wanders up and down with the phase of the moon.

3. Tidal power will last for millions of years.

4. It doesn’t require high-cost hardware, in contrast to solar photovoltaic power.

5. Moreover, because the power density of a typical tidal flow is greater than the power density of a typical wind, a 1 MW tide turbine is smaller in size than a 1 MW wind turbine; perhaps tide turbines could therefore be cheaper than wind turbines.

6. Life below the waves is peaceful; there is no such thing as a freak tidal storm; so, unlike wind turbines, which require costly engineering to withstand rare windstorms, underwater tide turbines will not require big safety factors in their design.

7. Humans mostly live on the land, and they can’t see under the sea, so objections to the visual impact of tide turbines should be less strong than the objections to wind turbines.

Mythconceptions

Tidal power, while clean and green, should not be called renewable. Extracting power from the tides slows down the earth’s rotation. We definitely can’t use tidal power long-term.

False. The natural tides already slow down the earth’s rotation. The natural rotational energy loss is roughly 3 TW (Shepherd, 2003). Thanks to natural tidal friction, each century, the day gets longer by 2.3 milliseconds.
Many tidal energy extraction systems are just extracting energy that would have been lost anyway in friction. But even if we doubled the power extracted from the earth–moon system, tidal energy would still last more than a billion years.

Notes and further reading

page no.

82The power of an artificial tide-pool. The power per unit area of a tide-pool is derived in Chapter G, p311.

–Britain is already supplied with a natural tide-pool . . . known as the North Sea. I should not give the impression that the North Sea fills and empties just like a tide-pool on the English coast. The flows in the North Sea are more complex because the time taken for a bump in water level to propagate across the Sea is similar to the time between tides. Nevertheless, there are whopping tidal currents in and out of the North Sea, and within it too.

83The total incoming power of lunar tidal waves crossing these lines has been measured to be 100 kWh per day per person. Source: Cartwright et al. (1980). For readers who like back-of-envelope models, Chapter G shows how to estimate this power from first principles.

84La Rance generated 16 TWh over 30 years. That’s an average power of 60 MW. (Its peak power is 240 MW.) The tidal range is up to 13.5 m; the impounded area is 22 km²; the barrage 750 m long. Average power density: 2.7 W/m². Source: [6xrm5q].

85The engineers’ reports on the Severn barrage...say 17 TWh/year. (Taylor, 2002b). This (2 GW) corresponds to 5% of current UK total electricity consumption, on average.

86Power per unit area of tidal lagoons could be 4.5 W/m². MacKay (2007a).

Dartford Crossing Study April 2009

Interesting study including analysis of current supply limitations, nature of demand and future options to meet anticipated demand.

You might have thought from reading the report that additional capacity is required sooner than the Forth Replacement Crossing. This is even more relevant in light of the fact that this is a strategically important crossing with v little in the way of a contingency options in the event of something unforseen happening (not mentioned in the report. 

New Civil Engineer

Department for Transport - report download

Sustainable Energy - without the hot air

"For anyone with influence on energy policy, whether in government, business or a campaign group, this book should be compulsory reading." Tony Juniper Former Executive Director, Friends of the Earth "At last a book that comprehensively reveals the true facts about sustainable energy in a form that is both highly readable and entertaining." Robert Sansom EDF Energy "The Freakonomics of conservation, climate and energy." Cory Doctorow, boingboing.net "...a tour de force..." The Economist download pdf file for free or browse the book using the table of contents ↓

Contents

Dedication Preface (p.viii) (p.ix)

10-page synopsis: (pdf)

I Numbers, not adjectives [pdf] 1 Motivations [html] 2 The balance sheet [html] 3 Cars [html] 4 Wind [html] 5 Planes [html] 6 Solar [html] 7 Heating and cooling 8 Hydroelectricity [html] 9 Light [html] 10 Offshore wind [html] 11 Gadgets [html] 12 Wave [html] 13 Food and farming [html] 14 Tide [html] 15 Stuff [html] 16 Geothermal [html] 17 Public services [html] 18 Can we live on renewables?

II Making a difference [pdf] 19 Every BIG helps [html] 20 Better transport [html] 21 Smarter heating [html] 22 Efficient electricity use 23 Sustainable fossil fuels? 24 Nuclear? 25 Living on other countries' renewables? 26 Fluctuations and storage [html] 27 Five energy plans for Britain [html] 28 Putting costs in perspective [html] 29 What to do now [html] 30 Energy plans for Europe, America, and the World 31 The last thing we should talk about [html] 32 Saying yes [html]

III Technical chapters A Cars II B Wind II C Planes II D Solar II E Heating II F Waves II G Tide II H Stuff II IV Useful data I Quick reference J Populations and areas K UK energy history