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Like most renewable energy sources, ocean waves cannot compete with the low costs of fossil fuels. It’s expensive to get wave-generated electricity ashore and add it to a local grid. But what if wave-energy conversion could be used where it’s generated?
The U.S. Navy aims to find out. A few weeks ago it installed a system of what are called PowerBuoys, made by Ocean Power Technology. The buoys are bobbing in the Atlantic about 30 kilometers off the New Jersey coast. Each one contains hydraulic fluid and a generator.
Ocean waves move the hydraulic fluid, which spins the generator. Depending on wave height and speed, as well as wavelength and water density, each buoy can produce up to 40 kilowatts of electricity.
Rather than transmitting that electricity to shore over a submerged fiber-optic line, the juice will power the ocean-based sensors that detect and track vessels. The system is part of the Navy's near-coast anti-terrorism and maritime surveillance program.
The PowerBuoys will replace ecologically unfriendly diesel generators. If only they could replace the cast of Jersey Shore.
—Larry Greenemeier
[The above text is a transcript of this podcast.]
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3 Comments
Add CommentHistorically, the Navy uses car type batteries to power these bouys. When used up they dump them in the sea.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo, when the waves are used, will the Navy simply dump them into the water, too?
My post was deleted! Why?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI was saying: *Hey, Larry Greenemeier, the pop-up that links to the Wikipedia needs to be mended! Check it yourself!*
It was not offensive and I was not only criticizing for critique.
I, as a consumer, was just pointing out an error in the relatively new (and interesting) resource presented in the texts of the podcasts.
I am accustomed to use the podcasts as a starting to read others articles related with the same theme in others sites, including Wikipedia.
I think that we readers of the transcript of the podcast deserve a product without errors.
I like very much to read and hear the podcasts from Scientific American on-line and I was in the expectation that you, Larry Greenemeier, would take the initiative to fix the pop-up.
The pop-up continues by linking the expression *Brain death* and not to what is written in the transcript, that is *Jersey Shore*.
If you were ever exposed to the television program "Jersey Shore" you would find the link to "brain death" highly amusing. I assure you that it is not an error.
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