A Submission from
Andrew H Mackay
Greenheat Systems Limited
Causewayside
TAIN
IV19 1NE
Tel ++44(0)1862 892777
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332
Combined Wave and Tidal Stream
(November 2008)
The Gentec WATS System will generate
all of Scotland's electricity from a combination of wind and tidal
stream energy. The electricity generated can be base load, load
following or peak shaving.
About 98% of the kinetic energy
captured is from wave power using mobile Combined Harvester Vessels
(CHVs). The remaining 2% will come from tidal stream or estuarine
river flows in the unlikely event of flat calm prevailing in the
North Atlantic for several days at a time.
The captains of these fully crewed
steam driven vessels will seek out the largest waves in the North
Atlantic or the North Sea. The kinetic energy contained in the
waves is converted to heat and stored as green heat in large thermal
accumulators on board these vessels. When these thermal accumulators
are fully 'charged up with heat', the CHVs simply head for port
to discharge their valuable cargoes of heat at their bespoke berths.
The heat is transferred from
the vessel using simple proven heat exchanging techniques to the
turbine house's much larger thermal accumulator. The use of expensive
and vulnerable sub-sea cables to bring renewable energy ashore
is no longer necessary. (Indeed, the Lewis to Denny interconnector
is no longer required because the energy captured off the Western
Isles can be transmitted to the Central Belt directly as heat
- by sea.)
The onshore hub power station
generates synchronous base load, load following or peak shaving
electricity continuously using standard off-the-shelf steam turbines
irrespective of the sea state and tides. The shore side power
station is designed to operate for five to seven days at full
capacity with any 'topping up' from the CHVs.
Thermal power stations consist
of two main elements; the 'heat source' and steam turbines. The
heat source either involves burning fossil fuels such as coal,
oil or gas or by creating a controlled thermo-nuclear explosion
by splitting the atom (nuclear fission).
Most people understands that
burning coal in coal fired power stations creates heat to raise
steam for their steam turbines but fewer understand that nuclear
fission is just another way of supplying heat to raise steam for
nuclear power stations' steam turbines.
Gentec WATS simply provides another
heat source from the infinite power of the waves and tidal streams.
In the Spring 2009, the Scottish
Government will be debating the proposal to build a huge coal
fired power station, with some carbon sequestration, at Hunterston
on the North Ayrshire coast - close to the Hunterston B nuclear
power station.
The basic plan is to import the
coal via the deep water berths at Hunterston to provide part of
the 'energy mix' suggested by the 'energy experts' employed by
the Scottish Government, who are either already in the pay of
the renewable energy industry or would like to be in the future.
Their advice is unlikely to be independent.
These self-proclaimed 'experts'
are responsible for holding back all other innovative ideas such
as my Gentec venturi invention dating back five or six years.
This tidal stream device, now superseded by Gentec WATS, would
have provide base load or peak shaving electricity by storing
all the power under the power curve as heat during Spring tides,
carrying some it forward into the Neap tides to give continuity
of supply at full rated power across each and every lunar month.
When any good idea is proposed to, say, The Carbon Trust, it has
to get panel of 'experts' so it has no chance of going any further
because this panel is made up entirely of self-proclaimed experts
who are instructed by their sponsors in the renewable energy industry
to maintain the status quo at all costs.
In the early 70s, the western
world was held to ransom because of shortages of oil - and the
concept of alternative forms of energy was born. Now, 35 years
later, despite installing thousands of MW of wind turbines, on
the say-so of these 'experts' we have come back full circle to
proposals for building power stations fuelled by another fossil
fuel - coal!
If this crackpot idea gets the
go ahead, as undoubtedly it will, because the same 'experts',
that gave us intermittent wind and marine turbines, need secure
base load electricity to make their puny not-fit-for-purpose renewable
energy devices work in the first place. Our Ministers seem to
be incapable of seeing just how ludicrous the concept of building
brand new coal fired power stations is, when you can get infinite
supplies of renewable heat from waves and tides instead.
The concept of shipping in heat
in the form of unburned coal, to Hunterston, to raise steam in
a proposed coal fired power station is well understood, yet shipping
in wave and tidal renewable heat, as heat, to the same berths
at Hunterston is beyond comprehension of most.
This renewable heat source will
be used to run the existing 1288MW rated generators already operating
at Hunterston B. Only the nuclear heat source needs to be decommissioned
over time.
This proposal will be a lot cheaper
than developing existing renewables further because no sub-sea
cables are required and the heat can be shipped into other existing
power stations like Longannet, Cockenzie and Torness where existing
generating plant can be used as coal and nuclear heat sources
are phased out over the next five to ten years.
The one-off cost of converting
the 1288MW Hunterston B nuclear power station into a 100% renewable
energy power station capable of generating 11.3TWh of pure synchronous
green electricity is put at £400 million. This figure includes
the construction of the bespoke berth and two steam driven CHVs.
The primary 'fuel' used to run the converted power station and
operate the CHVs is from waves and tidal stream which are free
of charge at the point of capture so carbon emissions can be put
at zero.
A modern supercritical 1288MW
coal plant, with the ability to sequestrate about a fifth of the
carbon emitted, on the other hand, will cost upwards of £1,000
million to build. The annual cost of 5.47million tonnes of coal,
assuming it remains at £300 per tonne, is a staggering £1.6
billion in fiscal terms. The cost to the planet in terms of CO2
emissions, assuming the carbon sequestration works, will be £8.3million
tonnes.
The additional cost of generating
unit of electricity (1kWh) from this new generation of coal fired
power stations, based on the wholesale purchase price of the coal
being £300/tonne is 15 pence. This cost price may well quadruple
when marine renewables are added in to the 'energy mix' as currently
proposed.
If Gentec WATS was rolled out
across Scotland so that Cockenzie (1200MW), Longannet (2400MW)
and Torness (1200MW) were modified simultaneously with Hunterston
B in a similar way then Scotland could generate 53.3TWh of very
cheap green electricity annually for a capital outlay of under
£2 billion. This figure, 53.3TWh, represents around 1/8
of the electricity consumed in the UK annually and will make fuel
poverty a thing of the past.
We are at a crossroads and if
we continue to follow the experts' advice we will consign future
generations to higher and higher energy bills - until the coal
runs out! Then what? With no oil, no gas and no coal to raise
steam our grand children will be forced to use waves and tidal
stream for renewable heat because there is no fossil fuels left
to burn!
Question; What country would
knowingly spend £billions on a finite resource, coal, when
an infinite free resource lies a few miles off-shore?
Answer; Scotland, because it
is governed by politicians who leave all that 'technical stuff'
to self-proclaimed experts and believe everything they say.
It is this lazy attitude adopted
by energy ministers worldwide that allows these self-serving experts
say what they think their minister want to hear - i.e. More and
bigger wind turbines.
This is the crass solution that
the Scottish Council for Development and Industry (SCDI) has come
up with. The major energy report concluded that a three-fold increase
in the number of on-shore turbines, costing £3 billion,(£1billion
more than implementing Gentec WATS) is needed if Scotland is to
meet its energy targets. It predicts that by 2020, more than 2,000
new turbines will be required to meet the target of providing
50 per cent of electricity from clean, green, renewable sources.
Sadly, the report does not distinguish
between random and intermittent bursts of electricity and secure
base load electricity that Gentec WATS will supply. In simple
non-technical language, the electricity from conventional wind
and marine turbines is the WRONG kind of electricity demanded
by modern society; the electricity that will flow from a Gentec
WATS thermal power station is the RIGHT kind of electricity.
Using Gentec WATS, all of Scotland's
secure electricity from clean, green, renewable energy sources
will generated by 2015 - if we start now implementing this idea
now!
A by-product from the generating
process can be desalinated water. Over 10 billion tonnes of pure
sterile potable water can be injected straight into the water
main. Surplus water can be sold to our southern neighbours and
Europe.
Current Status
The patent pending invention
described above is available under a provisional six month non-exclusive
licence for Scottish waters only on a 'first come, first served'
basis. The licensee must 'earn' the rights to an exclusive 10
year licence by demonstrating that real progress has been made
during the initial six month period. Failure to meet the predetermined
goals means that a six month non-exclusive licence will pass to
the next company or syndicate on the wait list.
Licences for other parts of the
world are available on request.
Parties wishing to express and
interest should do so by email at the following address:
All truth passes through
three stages:
First, it is ridiculed;
Second, it is violently opposed; and
Third, it is accepted as self-evident.
-- Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860)
Tel
++44(0)1862 892777 Mob. ++44(0)7720 141 332
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