Hi I have an idea about generating electricity from the rise and fall of tidal water on my property.

In theory and in my head I can’t see why it wouldn’t work but lack the calculation skills to actually see if it would work in real life.

Could anyone help me please?

Hi John, It would certainly be possible, but economically viable on a small scale... I doubt it. To my knowledge one could either build a dam wall with some turbines in it that can turn as tidal water flow in and out, or one could make use of buoyancy, with "floaters" hooked up to a mechanism anchored on the floor of the tidal basin, or on land, that in turn would be hooked up to a generator similar to the inverse of a motor vehicle engine's piston and crankshaft... The latter would be very difficult to design successfully as the force of the rising and falling tide, having a period of about 6 hours, would need to be geared to turn the generator at a high enough RPM to actually generate electricity. The tidal dam would be easy to design, and would likely work well even on a small scale, but the cost to build would be very high.

If you have another idea, perhaps you could share, so that we could discuss...