Malachy

How many times do you have to post that bloody graph? Please, just stop it! I called it silly before, but now I'd like to amend that to absolutely ludicrous. Your suggestion that your machine can store 100% of the available tide power is beyond stupid. It is science fiction. You are deluded! Completely deluded. That machine will never be made because nobody apart from you will ever 'understand' it. That is because it doesn't make sense. In so many ways, it does not make sense! Please, I'm begging you, give up on Shetland. Condemn us to our inevitable windmill hell and go and bother somebody else. Try the Isle of Wight, or the Falkland Islands, or the South Shetland Islands.

7 x 6 = 42 You need to brush up on your numeracy skills.

First high tide in Dover today was 00.23 First high tide in Leith was 04.10 In answer to your question, I'd say somewhere between the two.

Must be a Chernobyl Trout

Hey, why aren't you posting this stuff in the 'Future for Shetland' thread? This is the kind of debate I was looking for... http://www.shetlink.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=2551

"Look at the mountains, look at those trees, look at that bum, he's down on his knees". Yes, quite! You'd have thought they might have noticed. Or someone would have pointed it out. But apparently not. And the great thing about that song is that, once you make that obvious realisation that it's not serious, the whole thing starts to fall apart. The character is clearly an squeeky clean poop tube. "That town's a little too rugged for you and me, you bad girl." Those last three words - totally unnecessary, but brilliant.

Well, I'm going to have to be unfashionable and speak up for the great, wonderful, Randy Newman. He's a superb songwriter and yet his albums sell next to nothing. He has to make his money these days writing animated film soundtracks like Toy Story. He's an incredibly witty writer, and if you think Americans don't get irony, the reason might be that Randy Newman was born with enough for the whole country. YouTube doesn't have much of his stuff unfortunately, but here's a few samples Political Science This is Randy looking, frankly, a bit strange, on the Old Grey Whistle Test. With free Slovak subtitles! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8U2HZkHWTTg I Love LA (they used this as the 'theme song' at the LA Olympics - perhaps missing the sarcasm) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aANWqzIJ6us My Life is Good (There's no other song quite like this) And a new one, the lyrics of which were published as a New York Times op-ed earlier this year. Sorry for overloading you with him but I think the world would be a better place if more people listened to Randy Newman!

I can no longer bring myself to waste my life away reading the drivel that greenheatman is producing. Ten pages spent on this guy and what has he come with: a couple of meaningless graphs, a pile of insults and a whole load of nothing. He has ignored offers to pay for his travel to Shetland, he's been offered space in 'Shetland Life' to enlighten people about his creation but he refused. He can't be getting much work done on this invention since he seems to spend his whole day arguing with people on various forums and message boards across the internet. I'm beginning to wonder whether he's being paid by Viking Energy to make them look fantastic, or to make tidal power look deliberately ridiculous. Sorry for ranting but greenheatman's presence on Shetlink has begun to depress me.

It's not nearly as inconsistent as "pro-life" and pro-capital punishment, which seems to be standard.

Well if it is ethanol then it's not worth thinking about. That is not a sustainable energy source!

Well for a while there I wasn't sure. If the mills were, say, too large to be wind-started, then it would (just about) make sense for them to need to be turned by a motor until the wind could take over. But, like I say, I'm glad that ain't the case.

Thanks for taking the time to go through some of the points above. It is easy for suspicion and cynicism to grow and fester when no response is forthcoming. This particular point ^^^ was an especially worrying one - the idea that the windmills were actually consuming power when the wind was low - and I'm relieved to hear that it is not the case. It certainly didn't tally with my (admittedly limited) knowledge of windmill technology

Agreed, this thread has become a bit of a mess, and would benefit from getting back 'on subject'. There are though, I'm sure, some of us who'd like you to dispel some of the more incredible claims that greenheatman has been making regarding the 'myths' of wind power.

So, EMF is voltage, but voltage is not necessarily EMF, right? That would seem to be a distinction to me.

But what kind of machine are you using to convert the tide to heat? I don't think you've specified that - it would seem fairly important. Also, what is used to power to pump to take the seawater through to the tank?

Greenheatman, I'm afraid I still want a clarification about something... The basics of your invention are not too complicated, and based on already existing technology: superheated water turns seawater to steam and drives a steam turbine. Fine! Not massively efficient but plausible. But where does the power to superheat the water come from? You need the steam turbine to create the power, but the steam turbine can't work without the superheated water, which needs power to be heated. Hmmm... Okay, once the turbine is working then presumably you can use that power to go back into reheating the water (making it even less efficient presumably). But am I right in thinking that this machine, like the windmills you hate so much, will also require a kickstart from the grid to heat the water initially?

Actually, so far as I was aware, EMF and voltage are distinct from each other.

At my last count we had about £45 pledged to get you a boat fare to Shetland. That's not far off the cost. I reckon there's more folk who will give a fiver, so will you book your ticket then? Tell us when you're coming...

Is it me being silly or is 197 missing?

I note a hint of sarcasm from these posts. Perhaps you don't believe me. But I have proof that GENTEC venturi mug is unbeatable - this graph proves beyond all doubt that I am right and you are wrong. http://img291.imageshack.us/img291/2462/venturiyv5.jpg

Mine is even simpler. I have two mugs of water. One of them is heated to 300 degrees celsius (I keep a book over the top to stop it escaping as steam). The other one is salty water from the voe. I swill that one around a bit to mimic the movement of the tide, then splash some of it into the other mug, then catch the steam in an unspecified generating machine, which sucks ever last bit of energy from it, then I have the equivalent power of about 300 huge windmills. In fact, more than that, because windmills don't actually produce any power at all. That's just a myth. We have two here just to show to the tourists. We really use them to grind corn.

I bought this amazing machine that powers my entire house and all my neighbours houses just from a mug of hot water that sits in my kitchen. It's called GENTEC venturi.

£30 already. Greenheatman, you'd better get on the phone to NorthLink!

Hey, no, you can pledge what you like. I just meant I wasn't quite keen enough to follow suit. I'll put in £5, you can stick with £10 if you like (although I'm not convinced there'll be a prototype), plus Fjool and Poolhaddock (come on, you'll put in £5 won't you PoolHaddock? Remember, you cannae spear a byre goat wi half a bannock!) Come on folks, roll up £15 and counting for the greenheatman travel fund...

Ok, I will put in £2, just to speed things up a bit. We'll need a few more contributions. Lets see if we can get the cost of his ticket by Monday. Edit: Hey, £10 ^^^ that's just showing off. Not sure I'm that keen. Let's say £5. What are we up to now?