Also, you need to burn gas only when there is no wind blowing in the winter. Which does not happen that often around the North Sea. Adding modern batteries, gas might be needed 2% or 3% of the time. Which means 97% of CO2 eliminated cheaply, and fast.
Though, adding wave power to complement wind would be nice, since the sea surface then provides free energy storage and energy transport to the shores, and waves in North Sea winter get easily 6 meters high.
With wind, at least all the moving parts tend to be well above water, only exposed to salt spray (though that’s still pretty nasty).
Tidal and especially wave have moving components exposed to water, often right on the wind-water line. That makes them corrosion and maintenance horrors.
There have been plenty of demonstration wave & tidal plants that have produced power, but I think the operation record is about two years, most much less.
Building and scrapping your plants every year or two is neither cost nor energy efficient.
Solar, hydro, geothermal, and wind are much nicer to deal with.
Tidal and especially wave have moving components exposed to water, often right on the wind-water line. That makes them corrosion and maintenance horrors.
True, the environment is not easy, and a lot of detail problems need to be solved.
But ships solved the same issues.
The charm of wave power is that the ocean surface is the storage medium. The surface stores and transports the energy to the shore.
Ships haven’t really ‘solved’ the same issues. They’re dry-docked at regular intervals (about every 5 years?), have minimal moving components below the waterline, and get the props cleaned by divers more frequently.
They are also capable of travelling to dry-dock under their own power and deliver a lot more revenue than your average wave turbine would, so the costs of dry-docking them aren’t as significant.
Also, you need to burn gas only when there is no wind blowing in the winter. Which does not happen that often around the North Sea. Adding modern batteries, gas might be needed 2% or 3% of the time. Which means 97% of CO2 eliminated cheaply, and fast.
Though, adding wave power to complement wind would be nice, since the sea surface then provides free energy storage and energy transport to the shores, and waves in North Sea winter get easily 6 meters high.
They even had to invent some crazy engineering to access wind power plants in typical winter weather - see “Ampelmann Gangway” at YouTube…
With wind, at least all the moving parts tend to be well above water, only exposed to salt spray (though that’s still pretty nasty).
Tidal and especially wave have moving components exposed to water, often right on the wind-water line. That makes them corrosion and maintenance horrors.
There have been plenty of demonstration wave & tidal plants that have produced power, but I think the operation record is about two years, most much less.
Building and scrapping your plants every year or two is neither cost nor energy efficient.
Solar, hydro, geothermal, and wind are much nicer to deal with.
True, the environment is not easy, and a lot of detail problems need to be solved.
But ships solved the same issues.
The charm of wave power is that the ocean surface is the storage medium. The surface stores and transports the energy to the shore.
This is a very powerful principle.
Ships haven’t really ‘solved’ the same issues. They’re dry-docked at regular intervals (about every 5 years?), have minimal moving components below the waterline, and get the props cleaned by divers more frequently.
They are also capable of travelling to dry-dock under their own power and deliver a lot more revenue than your average wave turbine would, so the costs of dry-docking them aren’t as significant.
That’s some cool engineering
This one shows it better..