Hi everyone,
So I was wondering why we can't put turbines into our ocean currents? This would be a great and cheap source of energy. Also, I was thinking that it might be possible to literally turn our oceans into solar cells themselves. Water is a great conductor of electricity, and obsorbes a lot of the sun's energy. Let's harness it!!
What do you guys think? Know any scientists we can pursuade to get this done? :D
Luna
Tidal generators aren't viable in most locations, though they work very well. There is one being set up not far from where I live. As for putting turbines in the currents, where would they stand? How would we get the energy they produce from the ocean to us without it being interupted? It would probably be very expensive and possibly to environmentally damageing to be worth looking into that alternate energy. Same with turning the oceans into solar cells, the cost would probably be astronomical and could be damaging to the environment.
I'm inclined to disagree with sevvack...
http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2013-05/aqua-turbine
That's just a couple... if you look through popsci i'm sure you'll find more... infact I think you'd like that site in general.
That and TED.com
Its hard to build something on the bottom of the ocean in some places due to depth. A great deal of the locations where these generators could be would be in deep areas of the ocean. And running oceanic cable for various reasons has been looked at before and its expensive and difficult. Also I think there was some theoretical issue with cables being prone to breaking for some reason, though I could be wrong on that one.
Energy is lost the more it has to travel, so transporting the energy to land is a challenge.
Seawater is highly corrosive (both salty and acidic) and storms at sea have incredible destrctive power, so any structure made will have to be a technological miracle. It can be done, but it will be extremely expensive. Most governments have enough trouble balancing a budget as is.