Update on Bay Of Fundy Tidal Power

Re: Update on Bay Of Fundy Tidal Power

Not to make excuses--but it is not as "big of mistake" as it would appear.

Power goes with the cube of the velocity:

• cube root (30) = 3.1x change in velocity

And when dealing with "real life" flows, turbulence, non-uniform fields (i.e., sea beds)--A Factor of 2x is almost "the same" in the modeling/measuring/predicting of flows.

A factor of 10x difference is a "night vs day" difference in Engineering Terms.

So, being off by 3.1 in velocity should probably not be a "fire-able" offense in a completely new field.

10x safety factors is standard for construction (difference between expected loads vs expected failure loads)...

Could you imagine if the Engineer told the bosses/folks paying for the project to make it 30x stronger and to make the generator 30x larger "just in case"...:roll:

Drawing power from nature (wind, water, etc.) requires serious over design... People talk about designing for 100 year storms, but they may happen anytime:

In their worst form, they were known as "100-year storms": catastrophes that occurred once a century and caused devastating floods.

And yet, in just the past four years, three times the Merrimack Valley and Southern New Hampshire have been hard-hit by storms that once came with interludes of decades between them.

So, do we design for 500 year events? How about 600 year events:

Inscriptions on up to 600 years old stone marker located near the coastal city of Kesennuma warn descendants:

"Always be prepared for unexpected tsunamis. Choose life over your possessions and valuables."
"If an earthquake comes, beware of tsunamis."
"High dwellings are the peace and harmony of our descendants, remember the calamity of the great tsunamis. Do not build any homes below this point."

We know that it probably would have reduced the losses of life and ongoing Nuclear Power Plant radioactive releases in Japan if people took the geological reports of Tsunamis seriously over the last decades...

-Bill