North Atlantic Power Station

[All Seeing Eye]

Solar power requires huge amounts of land area so to beat this problem how feasible do you think it would be to build a floating solar power station in the North Atlantic?
It would be one big huge collection of solar panels in the shape of a huge square island floating on the surface of the water, beneath the floating island would be tethers to the bottom of the ocean, as the ocean waves go up and down the tethers will increase and decrease in length causing turbines to spin and generate power.
The huge island will be connected to the UK by undersea cables which will send all the generated power directly into the UK powergrid.

Could it be done? would it be worth doing? are there any downsides?

 

[Squiggy]

are there any downsides?

The fact that the North Atlantic has short days in the winter months.
Clouds.

 

[Lindley]

It would be more impressive to figure out a way to harness the sea itself as one big solar collector. It's salt water, so it should already conduct current better than fresh....just need to figure out the right mechanism to (a) create current, and (b) collect it.

I'm thinking floating nanotech of some kind.

 

[Sheliak]

You don't need solar panels, you can generate power from the waves themselves.

 

[Ariadne]

You'd have to get the water to land, and it would be hard to keep it repaired.

Much better to choose a desert and use that.

 

[DontFeedPhil]

Well you could do something like that. But id do it off the Gulf coast in the USA. Its much more sunny there for Most of the year. And then we can take those power lines you talked about and hook them right up to the US. Cause we talked about it and decided the cables would be too long to run back to the UK. Besides you guys got enough electricity with windmills and candles right???

 

[RobertVA]

Any facility on or near a large body of salt water is going to be a challenge to maintain. There will always be issues when equipment is covered with spray, which evaporates leaving the corrosive and abrasive salt behind. The salt would cloud solar panels too.

Large facilities like this would also require some sort of structure to allow sections to independently float over the passing waves without banging into each other, probably rigid booms with pivots at both ends. Unless there is lots of space between sections I doubt flexible cables would do the job.

For the UK wind turbines would probably be more practical. Then there would be the choice of the higher maintenance of hiding them over the horizon in the Atlantic and North Sea or the look of a large quantity of turbines across the countryside. The fresh water from lakes can be pumped into higher reservoirs during windy periods and allowed to flow through hydroelectric turbines to recover the energy during calm periods.

 

[All Seeing Eye]

You don't need solar panels, you can generate power from the waves themselves.

Thats why I said the solar island would have cables attached to 'it'and the sea bed, that would turn turbines as it moved up and down on the waves.

 

[JustAFriend]

...and what effect would building it have on the Atlantic currents and weather?

Can you say, "Might cause more problems than it solves...."????

And the Atlantic storms with rogue 60-90ft waves are gonna be fun.....

 

[All Seeing Eye]

...and what effect would building it have on the Atlantic currents and weather?

Can you say, "Might cause more problems than it solves...."????

I really doubt it.

And the Atlantic storms with rogue 60-90ft waves are gonna be fun.....

not to mention great for generating power.

 

[John Picard]

Solar is reasonable for small power requirements, but is not the cure-all people think/want it to be.