To clarify my position (which does not really change all that much even if my understanding of the basic forces behind the tides was wrong)
Binntho, it appears that at first you concede that the solid basis of your claims was wrong all along, and then you return to the same claims along with the accusation of pseudoscience. Just like the tides, the concepts moved back and forth and stayed in the same place.
However, now that you finally concede the main point - that tides do move large amounts of water laterally - I believe in your zeal you have not stopped to consider the implications.
It's true that tides move water
back and forth, as the bulge does not stay in the same place. It's also true that
it's not the same water that orbits the Earth along with the bulge, so it has some similarities to a wave. However for 6 hours water does move laterally, and a large amount of it. Now ask yourself:
A. What happens when the transported water has different properties than the water in the location it arrives to? E.g. Temperature, salinity, chemical signature.
B. What happens when that water gets deflected to the side by land or shallow bathymetry?
C. What happens when the water is transported north or south?
(All of these are various conceptual examples of ratcheting, converting a cyclical phenomenon into a unidirectional phenomenon).
The answer in all cases is that the incoming water gets mixed with the resident water, and 6 hours later when the reverse transport occurs it is slightly different water that comes back.
In case B a current or gyre may develop. The tide moves the water onto a diagonal feature, and the water is shifted sideways. When the reverse tide happens, the water transported back could be different water.
In case C the water being transported north is shifted east by the Coriolis effect. When the reverse tide occurs, the water being transported south is shifted west.
Now imagine you are in the Arctic, the coldest and freshest water in the NH. Any incoming water will almost by definition be warmer and more saline than the resident water. In addition incoming water will by definition be moving north and thus be pushed east, inducing a current inside the Arctic basin. Recall that the Arctic Ocean does not have many openings to the south, so a narrow opening will emit an eastbound tidal current that cannot be pulled back completely during outflow, as the water was already deflected beyond the opening. Bottom line, the tides do bring energy into the Arctic. How much? No clue. Negligible? I doubt it.
Lest we forget, tides may also cause fast ice to break - they lift it physically, thus possibly inducing its detachment from its anchoring points, and in addition may twist it laterally, if different tide heights are induced in sufficiently close locations. Of course all this applies only to coastal regions, but that is where fast ice is to be found. Fast ice is much more resilient to melting and export than mobile ice, thus higher tides may be somewhat detrimental to ice survival.
Of course these are just intuitive ramblings. I am no expert on tides. Neither are you, is what I finally realized.
While reading a bit more on tides, I asked myself whether tides have a significant north-south component. Had the moon been orbiting the Equator, no such component would have occurred. It turns out the moon's orbit is inclined by 18-28 degrees from the plane of the Equator, with an 18 year cycle. 2015 saw the minimal inclination, and 2024 will see the maximal inclination. Thus a north-south component does exist. I am sure people who know something about tides know all this.
And here's a little diagram that shows tidal amplitudes in the Arctic Basin, from an interesting paper about "Tidal currents in the western Svalbard Fjords". (Yes, they do exist).
Remember tidal range is double the tidal amplitude.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0078323415000883