PDQ Mobile wrote:roubaixtuesday wrote:PDQ Mobile wrote:True.
And yet France has over 12 Gigawatts of installed capacity.
Twelve times more.
And it's not all in the Alps but a deal of it is river sourced.
http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/france/
The Thames is, I think, the largest flowrate river in the UK. It has a quoted rate of 65m3/s
The Rhone has a flowrate of 1700m3/s
Twenty six times more.
It's simple physics, which comes from the geography.
You must allow for precipitation variables though.
Clearly the Rhone and it's tribtaries are far more favourable but only sometimes.
In deep winter for example the flow will be far under the quoted figure.
It would appear the Tay has the greastest fliw rate in the UK and is probably more favourable in terms of "geography".
It's quoted mean flow in 2008 is stated as " 208.5 CuM/Sec."
Which is not insignificant?
The other biggys are given as :- "The Tay is a convincing winner, compared with the Trent at 98 CuM/Sec the Severn at 69 CuM/Sec and the Thames at 83 CuM/Sec."
If we can't get a bit of leccy out of that lot I reckon we are not being sensible.
I'm not arguing we can't get "a bit of leccy". I'm arguing, with quantification, that
(1) it is insignificant vs overall UK energy demand, and following your earlier challenge
(2) it is far less than the potential in France, due to different geography.
The numbers you quote continue to support both of those points; the flow rates are far less than French rivers, and Scotland is far lower than the Alps.