“There is a tide in the affairs of men……

Which, if taken at the flood leads on to fortune.” So says Brutus to Cassius in Julius Caesar.

Interesting, Because upward of forty years ago we at LSS were already advocating the construction of a huge barrier across the estuary of Britain’s Severn river to provide a valuable source of energy. We were mocked by those on the political Right who said “why bother, when we have so much oil and coal”? Those on the Left took an opposite view-“why bother when we have all that coal and oil”? How times change.

For the time has come for all island nations, indeed all those with a good ocean coastline to get serious about a source of energy that is at once cheap, green clean and above all predictable, in a way that winds are not-until we have much better computers that is. That is why we are so encouraged by the University of Plymouth and their sterling efforts to tap the power of the ocean currents, and give these islands a whopping 11% of its energy. French, Japanese, American readers-could your country do this?

We have placed a number of links at your disposal. Tidal power has a nice starters’ guide for the uninitiated. [2] and [3] give you the pioneering efforts of the University of Plymouth and its admirable scientists and engineers. Of course they’re not the only ones, there is hope gentle readers where there is human thought and ingenuity. So we will end with the full quote from William Shakespeare, who was clearly hundreds of years ahead of this time:

T_{here is a tide in the affairs of men/which. if taken at the flood, leads on to fortune/omitted, all the voyage of their life/is bound in shallows and in miseries/on such a full sea as we are now afloat/and we must take the current when it serves/or lose our ventures}

[1] http://www.tidalpower.co.uk/

[2] https://www.plymouth.ac.uk/news/tidal-stream-power-can-aid-drive-for-net-zero-and-generate-11-of-uks-electricity-demand

[3] https://www.plymouth.ac.uk/research/coast-engineering-research-group/tiger

#tidalpower #renewables #global warming

_{we thank Mr G Herbert of Buckinghamshire for this story}