Photo Friday: Tidal power device on test in Orkney
January 28, 2010 by Caitlin
Filed under Featured, On the Road
Orkney, Scotland, UK; June 2009
The series on stone-age Orkney was one of my favourite things I did on the blog last year. But the day or two I spent playing tourist came after several days working on a story that is very much rooted in the modern era.
The real reason I went to Orkney was to write a story for British current affairs magazine New Statesman about renewable energy in Orkney. I would love it if you would read the article and let me know what you think. I may at some point put a longer version online as I had to cut quite a bit to fit into the slot the magazine allocated.
Like nearby Shetland, the Orkney Islands are an archipelago off the northern coast of Scotland towards Norway. Orkney has been continuously inhabited for more than 5,000 years and modern-day Orcadians are involved in research and development for marine energy – both tide and wave power. On the outer islands, where populations sometimes number in the low to mid hundreds, they are building community-owned wind turbines to try to ensure their way of life is sustainable.
I’m on a ship in the North Sea and the strange machine you see behind me in the picture is a tidal power device being tested in the Fall of Warness, waters off the coast of Eday. It’s at a site run by the European Marine Energy Council, which owns infrastructure that commercial developers can plug their devices into for testing purposes. As you can see, it’s like a giant turbine – a similar concept to a wind turbine, except that the tidal current drives the turbine instead of wind. Usually the device would be underwater and therefore not visible but at this time it’s been raised from the seabed for some sort of maintenance work.
Photo by Neil Kermode.
That’s certainly not a typical travel pic. I’d love to read more about what you’ve written on renewable energy. Australia faces a similar problem in that while we could generate power from both geothermal and wind technology, the site of manufacture of this energy is quite distant from the main site of consumption which adds significantly to the cost. More research should bring the costs down. I love the analogy to the Wright brothers!
How cool to be able to see the machine above the water! How expensive is it to install one? That would be a great energy resource.
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It’s pretty early days so it’s not really commercial yet. The analogy I heard is that the marine energy industry is about where the Wright Brothers were, having proven that heavier-than-air flight is possible. But the Wrights did sell their second plane. – Caitlin.
Oh my! this looks sooooo cool!! Why is there a need for marine energy?
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Thanks for your comment. Humans need electricity for all sorts of reasons. Tides, like waves, wind and the sun, are a renewable, non-polluting source, unlike burning fossil fuels like coal or uranium. – Caitlin.
That’s interesting…yet it’s not very popular…you only hear talks of solar, wind, or fuel energy
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It’s not that it’s not popular, it’s just that it’s very new and it’s still in research and development phase. They are researching it in Oregon, USA as well. Another interesting renewable energy that is in R&D phase is geothermal – basically getting electricity from volcanoes and fissures – and there is work on this happening in Australia and Nicaragua.
If we are going to move to making most of our electricity from renewable sources then we will have to rely on more than one type – we can’t get everything we need just from wind or just from solar, especially since the right conditions don’t exist in every part of the world. – Caitlin.
wow, so interesting! thanks for feeding my curiosity!
I think I overload you with many more questions if we were having a face to face conversation. 
Thanh Lu´s last blog ..Talk Is Cheap – Give Me Some ROI Lovin’
No worries! A lot is explained in my article so do read it if you get a chance. – Caitlin.
It looks so isolated! The North Sea…Orkney Islands…the names themselves evoke curious marine adventure stories: lost ships, genius scientists, weird machines in the middle of the sea…LOL
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LOL! Of course, in the Age of Sail the sea was a connector rather than a divider and Orkney was very centrally located along the shipping route from Europe to Canada. It doesn’t feel isolated there, much less so than northern Scotland because it’s more populated. – Caitlin.
A very interesting contraption, never seen one before, so thanks for the image. They seem a bit offputting, but if its cleaning up our planet, then I’m all for it.
I know what you mean by “offputting” but ordinarily the device would be underwater and not visible to humans. Tests have shown that sea birds avoid them and seals only check them out from downstream (so they can’t get sucked in). – Caitlin.
Thanks for the reply Caitlin, good to hear that they don’t seem to cause any problems.
It would be great if the tidal turbines became a source of economic generation for Orkney in terms of exporting both energy & expertise. I read the article (well, scanned actually – you know how impatient internet readers can be) – it was well written & researched but I can’t say I’d want it any longer, but then it’s probably not my area of major interest in life!
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Thanks for the comment and for looking up the article. I think it’s easier to read longer articles on print – this was only two pages of a magazine so it’s not super long. The longer version has a lot more stuff about life on the smaller islands of Orkney and the community wind turbines. I will publish it here eventually, for those who are interested. – Caitlin.
wow! that machine looks like from futuristic movie
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It’s not gonna harness much energy sticking up out of the sea like that is it?! Only kidding, I think these devices are a great idea. The energy is there constantly we might as well use it.
how far offshore are they?
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I don’t know precisely. We had a long boat trip but I think it was reasonably close to the island of Eday. It’s not an area of water that people use much since it’s deep with strong tides. Since it’s only a test device, no one knows yet what the requirements would be for the real thing. Obviously local planning permission would apply. – Caitlin.
Personally I don’t understand when people complain about systems like this and wind-farms. I would much rather have these to look at than a dirty big power station. I can see there being problems though if they try to use them in areas which are less remote than this.
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Thanks for your comment. This machine is not usually visible – it’s only out of the water for maintenance work. – Caitlin.
Wind power is a good source of electricity but it also takes up lots of space just like solar power plants.`,’
While this is true, people often forget that wind turbines don’t prevent the land being used for other things. For example, you can grow crops or even keep livestock on the ground beneath a wind turbine. The same may apply to solar, but I’m not sure. There are also off-shore wind turbines. – Caitlin.
Renewable energy is the future, why depend on fossil fuels when we can go renewable.*:`
Renewable Energy got into more focuse in this decade because everyone does not want to depend on Oil.`-`
wind farms are great but they also take up a large land area`,”
This is both true and untrue. Firstly, there are off-shore wind farms that don’t take any land at all. They do require undersea cables and infrastructure but this is often compensated for by greater electricity generation as a result of windier conditions. Secondly, on land, the wind farms do require a lot of land but they don’t require exclusive land use. It’s entirely possible to put up wind turbines and then grow crops or graze livestock on the same land. – Caitlin.