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Comment by KuiN | Hacker News Reader

Scotland is aiming to be a world leader in tidal energy [0]. Which I guess makes sense given we're practically surrounded by pretty rough seas. Shetland has just had a tidal energy electric car charger installed [1]. Bit of a gimmick but the Scottish government is serious about making this a significant source of energy.

[0] https://www.gov.scot/policies/renewable-and-low-carbon-energ...

[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-she...

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Hopefully the region can start developing more long term industry like this as once the oil is over, the north east of Scotland is going to really struggle.

It already is. But otherwise I agree.

> Scotland is aiming to be a world leader in tidal energy. Which I guess makes sense given we're practically surrounded by pretty rough seas.

Rough seas damaging your tidal energy kit are the one thing you don't want.

I have mentioned above that offshore wind has emerged the clear winner with respect to offshore renewable energy. Putting moving parts in salt water is always a tough prospect, and wave/tidal simply cannot scale to the extent wind can.

I hate to say it, but I suggest many of the experimental wave/tidal schemes under trial are simply for green bragging rights and/or to grab funding for green energy projects...... Funding put forward by well meaning bodies that that would be better directed to other renewable energy sources.

EDIT: This is Hacker News, not Reddit. If you disagree with the above please explain why in comments rather than down voting.

I'm not sure that latter point is actually true:

"Downvoting for disagreement has always been ok"

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17996858

I would tilt at windmills, tilting at tidal power is a waste as the projects always sink.

Ba dum tsssh.

That bar is embarrassingly low. Because nobody really has working tidal energy power at scale.

The same could have been said of wind and solar years ago. The same is said of any innovation. Aren't we on HN?

No, the same could not have been said. Solar and wind have been working for ages in many ways and forms. Tidal has been a pipe dream since the beginning of the previous century. It won't work. Windmills are in use the world over, the power of the sun is what causes the wind in the first place and besides has been used directly using lenses since forever.

Getting usable power out of tidal energy is stupendously hard and won't scale.

And yes, we're on HN. And yes, having built a windmill (not a toy, one that can power a house) and having worked with innovative solar plants (specifically: concentrators) and finally, having consulted on tidal energy projects I actually think I know what I'm talking about. Tidal energy = uBeam = Theranos.

Solar and wind were widely said to be too expensive (and too limited in other ways) to compete, and I'm pretty sure that was in the last 20 years.

Fusion hasn't worked out either; I'm not expecting much; I'm glad the research continues. Is fusion also a boondoggle and pipe dream?

The propaganda from the nuclear lobby was never to be believed. Solar has been in widespread use for more than 30 years, wind for millennia.

Fusion will work long before we will have tidal energy plants worth writing about.

> Solar has been in widespread use for more than 30 years, wind for millennia.

C'mon, you know that's not what I mean. Heck, solar has been in use for millennia too: Matzoh is in the Bible! Thanks to photosynthesis and our atmosphere, solar has provided almost all energy on earth for billions of years!

And hyperbole isn't an argument, it's the lack of arguments.

You make factually incorrect claims about solar and wind and next lecture me on 'lack of arguments'?

Solarpower in one form or another has been used for many decades, optimizations and cost reduction are what has given us economical solar panels, the tech has been there for much, much longer than 20 years. That's just the time that you have been paying attention to it.

Windpower has been in widespread use where I live for 5 years, and the Greeks has usable windmills much longer ago than that.

Which is nothing at all like your bullshit arguments.

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