Scottish Power plans world's biggest wave farm

[RedEarth]

LONDON (Reuters) - Scottish Power (SPW.L: Quote, Profile , Research) plans the world's biggest wave power generation project near the Orkney Islands, the company said on Tuesday.

Scottish Power - a takeover target for Spanish power company Iberdrola (IBE.MC: Quote, Profile , Research) - hopes to get the 10-million pound, three-megawatt wave power farm running by 2008.

Four 160-metre long "Sea Snake" wave power generators developed by Ocean Power Delivery should produce enough power for 2,000 homes, Scottish Power said in a statement. "It will be a test of the actual devices that will be used commercially and, if successful, should help propel Scotland into the forefront of marine energy throughout the world," Scottish Power's renewables director, Keith Anderson, said.


"This kind of marine generator can make the best use of Scotland's natural resources and help combat the threat of global warming in the future," he said.

Britain is increasingly looking to generate electricity from its wind-swept coastal areas in an effort to cut carbon emissions from the power sector as part of the fight against global warming.

http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/articlebusiness.aspx?type=businessNews&storyID=2007-02-20T152516Z_01_L20527663_RTRUKOC_0_UK-SCOTTISH-POWER-WAVE-FARM.xml

[NNadir]

1. Wow. "World's largest?"

I always feel relieved about these "world's largest" stories. Three megawatts? Wow.

Is it three megawatts on wavy days or not wavy days or both?

I hear a lot about wave power.

Here is the World Energy Council's report on the subject from 2003: http://www.worldenergy.org/wec-geis/publications/reports/ser/wave/wave.asp

[skids]

2. Interesting report.

I'm glad to see the pelemas progressing into production. Hindsight is 20/20, but one wonders how far along we'd be with these technologies if we hadn't been asleep while the oil was cheap.

[NNadir]

3. Hey. Good to see you. I hope things are going well as they can under

the circumstances.

These things have a way feeling like rages. If you feel like punching out a brick wall, may I suggest myself?

[skids]

4. Plenty of walls here to punch...

...but no time to punch them fortunately. What little family he had has to drive miles to get here, and for much of his possessions -- and he was quite the collector/packrat/librarian -- I'm pretty much the only one to know how to go about handling their disposition. So I am completely buried in boxes. And my own piles of crap were verging on collapse when this happened. So I have plenty of "housecleaning" to distract me from just how much this sucks.

Thanks for asking.

[NNadir]

6. Hang in there.

It may not seem so, but these things have a way of passing too.

[jpak]

5. Portugal has 20 MW of Pelamis generators on order

and 5 GW of wave power potential (20% of its electrical demand).

They are way ahead of everyone on this...