VIVACE generates big power from small currents

These days people are looking everywhere to find new, cheap, and plentiful sources of electricity, and while you wouldn't call it new, the ocean is certainly cheap and plentiful. Plentiful too are the people attempting to convert its motion into power by tapping its waves or extracting its heat. But what about lesser waters moving at a leisurely 3 knots? Those lazy flows make up the majority of all currents and are exactly the target of VIVACE, a series of tubes (seriously) that relies on vortex induced vibrations (the VIV) to create clean aquatic energy (the, uh, ACE). The idea is that the cylindrical shapes create turbulence in slow-moving water, oscillating up and down in electricity-generating ways. It's all the brainchild of Michael Bernitsas, a professor at the University of Michigan, and is partly funded by the US Department of Energy -- your tax dollars at work, you eco-pioneer you.

[Via inhabitat]

[blueangel00100 @ Dec 3rd 2008 8:43PM]

THIS IS GOING IN MY ROOM!

[drumdbeat @ Dec 3rd 2008 8:46PM]

-1 Damn caps lock.

[KAIKAI @ Dec 3rd 2008 9:01PM]

you have ocean water currents in your ROOM ....O.o

[nerdtalker @ Dec 3rd 2008 9:06PM]

Thank goodness you said "room," honestly, I was getting a bit worried nearing the end of that sentence that it would have chosen some orifice for it to go.

[DT @ Dec 3rd 2008 9:31PM]

THIS IS GOING IN MY NOSTRIL!

[Flashpoint @ Dec 3rd 2008 10:22PM]

Theoretically, the energy generated by gravitational potential of the moon and the sun makes earth a Perpetual motion machine.

Wave energy, Solar energy, geothermal energy and nuclear energy will NEVER be used up for the million years humans can expect to exist barring a sudden catastrophe extinction level event.

SO WHY THE FCK ARE WE USING OIL?

[Taylor @ Dec 4th 2008 12:25AM]

Flashpoint:

At the moment, our best way of converting chemical energy (in natural gas, oil or coal) into electrical energy (the kind that you get out the socket) is to burn the fuel, and spin a turbine which spins a copper coil (solenoid) around a large magnet. When the magnet moves electrons in the copper, we get electrical current.
At the moment I think the most efficient power station of this sort is in Australia and gets something like 57% efficiency.
http://www.ipplc.com.au/Page.php?iPageID=33

Wave power, solar power, all work on different principles, and none of them are above 30% efficiency.

It's all about money and efficiency, not the environment

[nerdtalker @ Dec 4th 2008 12:29AM]

@Flashpoint,

You're right there, but only to a point. There still isn't any free lunch per-se even by capitalizing on tidal wave energy.

Anyone who has taken even the simplest of college physics courses should be able to even derive the proof that wave action on earth does work on the moon that way. The energy you're going to be drawing will be many orders of magnitude smaller than anything one would have to worry about, but it still isn't a "perpetual energy machine" by any stretch of the imagination; you're still converting the kinetic energy of waves (which arises from the gravitational force of the moon) into electrical energy, and that energy is coming from the gravitational potential energy of the earth-moon system.

Sure, the moon is moving away from the earth right now, but if you do enough work via tidal motion, for long enough, you're going to slow that progression.

[Pesmo @ Dec 3rd 2008 8:45PM]

HOLY HELL!! This is cool as hell. I'm working on this project. Great job Prof Bernitsas.

[The Walrus @ Dec 3rd 2008 9:16PM]

Question: I am currently in possession of a series of tubes attached to my computer, how can I aid this project?

Seriously though, pretty cool and it seems like it is one of the more plausible "get water from the ocean" ideas

[kingu @ Dec 4th 2008 1:09AM]

@The lolrus

You are not helping ;)

[ben @ Dec 3rd 2008 9:14PM]

I'm not sure if this would have the same effect, but tidal generators can actually be damaging to the enviroment. Any energy gained by the generators through the tides is taken out of the motion of the water, causing floods and ebbs to be lessened. This can hurt agriculture and inland ecosystems through a loss of irrigation.

[Bill @ Dec 3rd 2008 10:03PM]

Nothing increases crop yield like a healthy dose of saltwater irrigation...so that's where salted nuts come from?

[nerdtalker @ Dec 4th 2008 12:32AM]

They also chew up shamu and other sea life, but which is really more damaging on the environment:

1. Ocean acidification through CO2 absorption (fossil fuel burning)
-or-
2. Reducing the tidal highs and lows by some small amount (wave energy capitalization)

Killing everything in the oceans by allowing them to acidify even more is likely much much more damaging (>>) than even reducing the effective coastline of every mainland in the entire world by a half meter.

[CBMTTek @ Dec 3rd 2008 9:15PM]

Cool, but is is really practical?

I think for what this will cost, we could retrofit almost all the dams in the US with hydroelectric generation capability, even on the small streams, and generate cheaper, more reliable electricity. No new construction. No navigation hazards. No potential environmental impacts. And, as an added bonus, some of the aging dams would be upgraded in the process.

Better bang for the buck if you ask me.

[DT @ Dec 3rd 2008 9:30PM]

A series of tubes? So it's the internet, but in the ocean? I'm confused.

[Mam00th @ Dec 3rd 2008 9:32PM]

We can be sure of one thing though, it's not a truck.

[James @ Dec 3rd 2008 9:40PM]

Well i guess ill have to agree with him if this is what he was talking about. The ocean is not just a big truck to dump stuff in.

[ED @ Dec 3rd 2008 9:33PM]

They should put this on the internet. Since it's, like, a series of tubes, y'know?
Or maybe they're doing this already.


Remember that the next time "the Internet is slow"

[dajimmers @ Dec 3rd 2008 9:45PM]

Why is a school located nowhere near the ocean researching ocean-based energy production? Course I don't know what neo-energy Michigan would research; getting power from gray skies and cold nights?

[d840 @ Dec 3rd 2008 9:50PM]

Hmmmm... gray skies and cold nights..... You might be onto something there....

[Sublimewulf @ Dec 3rd 2008 10:01PM]

In michigan (and wisconsin, my home), we have what you call "Lakes". They are like oceans, only smaller, hence "Lake Michigan".

[Fernando @ Dec 3rd 2008 10:02PM]

don't diss michigan, bro

[greg @ Dec 3rd 2008 10:56PM]

They do have lake...
plus you don't have to be next to an ocean to know how currents work.

[dajimmers @ Dec 4th 2008 6:06AM]

I am well aware of the lakes in Michigan, as I happen to live on Lake Michigan. While they are certainly large for lakes, and can generate some currents and waves, comparing them to the ocean is like comparing wind generation here vs. the moon.

And I'm not dissin Michigan, I happen to like my gray skies and cold nights. Right now it is cold outside, and whenever the sun comes "up," I'm sure the skies will be gray.

[grifmx @ Dec 3rd 2008 10:42PM]

If inexpensive or even free energy is discovered, unless it can be patented and made costly, it never reaches the general population.

[Steve @ Dec 3rd 2008 11:44PM]

GO BLUE!

[kingu @ Dec 4th 2008 1:04AM]

I hear taxpayers money are also used to research waste of energy in Afghanistan and Iraq...

[yloz @ Dec 4th 2008 2:59AM]

That picture looks like the scene from Lost where Hurley is in the interrogation room and Charlie breaks through the glass.

[3mendo @ Dec 4th 2008 4:22AM]

The funny thing is that VIVACE in Italian means lively, vivacious or peppy or exuberant... cool!

[rita hainsworth @ Dec 4th 2008 5:35AM]

My entire apt. is being powered by a 10 gallon fish tank

[xis @ Dec 4th 2008 10:42AM]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pelamis_Wave_Energy_Converter

[BroChaos @ Dec 4th 2008 1:14PM]

nice to see a michigan article follow up that michigan state one...GO BLUE!

[ibsailn @ Dec 4th 2008 4:27PM]

Glad to hear the Naval Architecture Department (I assume that is who is working on this at UMich--I am a grad of NavArch rival Webb Institute) is making progress on energy programs, but 3 knots is some pretty serious current. Most tidal currents are well under 2 kts, so you are primarily limited to streams and rivers and ones with pretty decent flow as well.