He sees wave power eventually providing some 20 percent of the United Kingdom's electricity needs, backing up the variability of the burgeoning wind power industry, which is set to rise to some 33 gigawatts within a decade.
Carcas also sees a potential renewable upside to the BP oil catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico. "It highlights the lengths we are having to go to in search of oil, and the pristine environments that will be at risk. If this disaster makes people think again about the costs of going after increasingly inaccessible oil and therefore look more closely at the alternatives like renewables, then maybe something good can be salvaged," he said.
Reprinted from Climatewire with permission from Environment & Energy Publishing, LLC. www.eenews.net, 202-628-6500
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Add CommentNice, get these babies up to 5MWs ASAP and Roll them out already!!!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDavid Mackay thoroughly analyzed Wave Power for Britain, which has one of the best wave resources of any nation, in his paper Sustainable Energy without the Hot Air. His conclusion, by covering half of Britain''s coastline with really efficient Wave Generators, you might get maximum 4 kwh/day per person vs the 195 kwh/day that the average Britain uses or the 260 kwh/day the average American uses (total energy consumption per capita). He admits that is really optimistic. Using the real world Pelamis wave generator that's reduced to 1.2 kwh/day per person. And uses 1000 kg steel per avg kw, vs offshore Wind of 510 kg steel per avg kw, and Old Nuclear uses 40 kg steel per avg kw. A solid, sobering analysis of the Pelamis Wave Energy generator here:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://bravenewclimate.com/2009/10/25/tcase5/
"...The annual output of an AP1000 nuclear reactor rated at 1,154 MWe and run at 92% capacity factor would be 9,300 GWh. So, going by the manufacturer’s data, we would need to deploy 3,450 Pelamis machines to generate the equivalent yearly energy of one AP1000, arranged in an array 0.6 km wide and extending along 180 km of high-energy coastline. (Note that these are projected, not measured figures - the real world is often tougher)..."
Harvesting expending energy from the worlds largest man made power source
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat is the greatest waste of man made expending energy on the planet today? AUTOMOTIVE VEHICLES How can we more efficiently HARVEST the energy currently being expended? Building Vehicle Energy Harvester (VEH)/(A Lead-Free Piezoelectric Device)
How it works
The system is based on the scientific principle that mechanical movement can be converted to electricity . The visible surface of the VEH is a rectangular unit (8 inches deep by 7 feet wide), flush with the roads surface, running from one side of the lane to the other. The surface of the unit is made of a thick industrial grade non-skid rubber, it is flush with the road, in the front and back, and elevated 1 inch in the center by a 3/4 wide steel bar running underneath the 7 ft wide rubber section. The rubber is bordered on all sides by a heavy duty non-skid steel frame (2 inches wide on all sides), looking similar to a green light traffic trigger seen at traffic light intersections. Simply put, as the vehicles tires run over the VEH, the weight of the vehicle, drives the steel bar in a downward motion, like an engine piston, the downward/linear motion of the piston is converted into rotational motion by the crankshaft via a connecting rod, ultimately, spinning the crankshaft at 2000-4000 rpms. On busy highways, with thousands of cars running over the units at 65 mph, during certain periods of the day and night, the amount of electricity created by each VEH would be phenomenal. Heavy duty electrical cables would be used to connect the VEH to either the local power grid or individual power stations for local distribution. The next question, Is this electricity free ? In the beginning, the VEHs might have to be located under roadways that have a downward incline . If they are, this energy source could be considered free due to the use of the gravity effect causing additional momentum from the downward incline vs. a flat or upwardly inclining road, which would require the vehicles to expend a very small amount of additional energy to get over the elevated section, and would therefore add COST to the system. (even though that cost is a fraction of a cent, it must be considered, from a legal standpoint). How this viewpoint is finally resolved will be the issue.
The potential electricity created with zero ADDITIONAL EMISSIONS could help provide a large portion of the world with a whole new source of energy. It could also provoke new ways of thinking, regarding alternative energy.
Brilliant. The company can obtain auxiliary revenues by charging admission to the wave farm information center.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMr. Sol Biderman
Sadly, another unrealistic idea. Energy is still cheap, and producing, hauling, installing, etc of these devices is going to be far more expensive when energy is not cheap. So yes, these and similar machines like windmills will indeed produce electricity, but they will never come even close to replacing Oil.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe energy density of oil, combined with ease of transport makes it the only energy that humans can really utilize and make wealth out of thin-air. Everything else is just a 'project'.
This is definitely innovative and interesting, but completely irrelevant in terms replacing Oil/Natural Gas as a source of energy.
The nice thing about this idea is that the "snakes" theoretically should be able to be unmoored and moved in the event of a hurricane, and will avoid getting damaged, unlike immobile offshore wind turbines.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisdwbd's comments and analysis seems well stated. This seems to be yet another idea that will not actually be commerically viable.
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