One of the Holy Grails of green power is hydroelectricity, and we've certainly seen our
fair share of
research in that department. The newest guy on the scene is called Oyster, a collaborative effort between Queen's University in Belfast and Aquamarine Power Limited that sees something called an Oscillating Wave Surge Converter placed offshore (in depths around 10-12 meters). When moved by waves, the device's double acting pistons push seawater ashore via high pressure flow lines, where it is converted to power using tried and true hydroelectric generators. Since the hydroelectric plant is located onshore, it is accessible for maintenance 24-7. According to the company, peak power should be around 300-600 kw, depending on the unit's configuration and location. The first prototype is to be deployed off the coast of Orkney this summer, where we'll see if it can transform high tides and abnormal weather patterns into juice for your Xbox. One more pic for you after the break.
[Via
Renewable Energy World]
posted Mar 9th 2009 10:49AM
Haven't you guise seen Southland Tales? WE'RE FUCKED!
This is the way the world ends.
GUYS !
Correct me if I am wrong, but this device would work regardless of whether there is climate change or not. All it needs is for there to be waves, and there will ALWAYS be waves.
So why do you need to editorialize by using the phrase "climate change" in a headline? Can't you just say "Oyster Wave Energy Converter turns waves of water into waves of electricity" or something similar?
Mentioning climate change is kewlx0r
unless of course the moon is destroyed
@ collectiveego
As the moon creates tidal currents, this here machine has little use for the tides...more for waves really if I look at the prudy picture
Waves are not the work of the moon alone. The Sun makes weather such as winds and currents.
Guys, you are wrong. Jesus makes the waves, duh.
And you know who parts them.
Correct. Climate change means little to this sort of project except when you consider that your plant may be underwater if you don't put it far enough inland.
Just FYI guys, the sun creates tides also.. The moon is closer thus exerting a greater gravitational force upon the water. The gravitational force from the sun is a little weaker because of how far it is; but it still creates tides...
I can just see it now. Scientists will say that a device like this will reak havoc on some endangered turtle, dolphin species, or mess with some type of estuary due to the way it interferes with waves needed to bring in fresh nutrients or something to that liking.
Good show, Mister James, good show indeed!
Anyone remember the episode on SeaQuest about these things?
-Sean
Lol, Seaquest, now that brings back nerdy memories!
yes
Would this effect the actual waves though? I.E. would it ruin surfing? Would land erosion change at all? There's no way this giant metal thing is gonna sit in the ocean with no effect on its enviroments
It's tinkering with wave energy, and like anything else man steps in to do it has real effects. When we steal energy from the wave it doesn't get transferred where it would "naturally". The ecosystem is so complicated that it's hard to predict what the effect is on all the little creatures when waves don't crash as hard into the shore. When there are only a handful of these things the effect is nil. When the shores are lined with them it adds up.
At one point people probably thought there would never be enough cars or airplanes or other industrial pollutants to make a difference to the environment. The earth isn't fragile, but maybe an earth that can support human life is?
yes, yes and yes. there is always a compromise.
@bobbyw
Finally, someone who understands the macro effects. Europe can be an example (I can't find the article here at work) about how the eastern countries are not liking the wind farms produced in the western countries. Anytime we fiddle with nature, there are consequences that just happen.
And the earth was just fine before humans. The earth will be just fine after we are gone.
Has about as much effect as a large boulder falling into the sea.
I'm not sure how fine the earth will be after we're gone - I suspect we'll do some pretty nasty things to it (well, continue to do) before we die out.
Eventually it will right itself again, though.
@bobby---
There still isn't enough industrial pollution to warrant any meaningful climatic change. I know this is going against popular opinion, but the data points to no real correlating rise in global temperatures due to the onset of the industrial revolution. Now, I am not saying the earth isn't warming....but most likely the change in temperature has more to do with the natural planetary climate cycles and less to do with our influence.
@Jay
Stop it. You are going to rile up the Zero Pop wackos with all your reasonableness.
I bet it's about on par with what happens when a bunch of folks go swimming, surfing, etc
Enjoy your fame and glory; it'll get you banned around here :/
The biggest problem is that the device is WAY too close to the shore. Percentage-wise, there is very little energy near shore compared to offshore. They need bigger converters further offshore.
The biggest problem is that the device is WAY too close to the shore. Percentage-wise, there is very little energy near shore compared to offshore. They need bigger converters further offshore.
The apparatus needs to be on the sea floor. To capture wave energy at great distances from shore would be difficult and costly.
I think the biggest problem is that it isn't nuclear power.
Climate Change??? I'm so sick of this crap. The globe's temperature has actually been decreasing the past 10 years, and Al Gore, who was so certain that there was nothing to argue about, seems to be caught with his pants down because now they're saying these catastrophic results of our meddling (which are, of course, inevitable...) may not begin to accelerate again for 50 years...what with the globe cooling and all...wait, you mean there are, always have been, and always will be climate change whether we're here or not?! Holy shit, thank you science! Until the hippies can actually show where natural climate change stops, and our effect begins, I really wish they would shut up and quit calling it fact, because it is clearly not. I support clean energy, and obviously what we put out into the environment isn't healthy for us, but can we please shut the extremists up?
Hmmm, you sound like someone whose sole source of information is fox news. Those of use who actually read things like peer-reviewed journals know that the IPCC (intergovernmental panel on climate change) recently released a report saying that global warming was actually accelerating faster than their worst-case scenario projections. So as happy as we'd all be to see Al Gore with his pants down, I think its much more likely that he'll be saying "I told you so" when warmer temperatures destroy ecosystems all over.
Rather than get into an argument, the fact that you support clean energy and you realize that what we put into the environment isn't healthy, that's all that matters. Global warming and going green is just a way to market those points across.
@bouncer6178
It all depends on what you read as to how big an effect there is and if there is an effect at all. Al Gore for instance used a glacier in Argentina to prove that global warming was fact and caused by man. However one of the scientists that works on the glacier has stated that the glacier is and has been stable over the past 30 or so years!
I have also read articles by scientists that state that the global ice volume is actually increasing rather than decreasing. Some areas are loosing ice while others are gaining it.
As I have not been to antarctica and many of the other places used as indicators of climate change I do not know who to believe, but one thing that stands out is that the great dog leg graph that apparently shows mans impact on climate change has such a huge possible error rate (also shown on the graph) that it could indeed show any number of scenarios, including global cooling!
However the more we use clean energy and the less we impact nature, the better we will be as a whole.
...Let's get one thing straight.
NO ONE is going to be happy seeing Al Gore with his pants down.
will be interesting to see if this rig could also replace sea water pumps for land based aquaculture/research sites.
I see the irony (and humor) of their mention of "climate change" in the headline for this piece. It's presence subtly yet correctly casts a jaundiced eye on the whole idea of "climate change" (and whether man is responsible for it). One thing I like most about Engadget is the subtlety of its humor; and watching that humor go straight over the heads of some of its readers!
I always wonder about these "solutions" because sea water not only promotes the rapid corrosion of almost any metal known to man, it's full of all kinds of tiny microscopic little critters that grow up to become great big critters gumming up the works of anything that comes into contact with it. Who is going to keep the barnacles from growing at any point in that long tube from the wave catcher to the hydroelectric generators?
That's what she said.
Hmm, how many dolphins/fish/whatever other important animals do you think will be trapped/gobbled up/just randomly killed by this monstrosity?
31 + a swimmer named Mark
Fuck the dolphins.
Rudolphe, the dolphins will not be thanking you for all the fish when they leave this planet. You're just jealous because people bully you and your red nose.
A recent nuclear power generator is producing 1500MW. That would take 2500 of these units to do the same. Considering it looks around 20m long, that's 50 km of shore filled with these units to take down one nuclear power plant.
Sorry but considering it will destroy the shore, I don't want it more than a nuclear power plant.
Yea, you summed it up. The ecological harm probably far out ways the nuclear implications (which as technology is evolving could be solved one day).
Once again why not test it, we could be wrong and it creates a nice moving reef that allows algae to attach creating a more oxygen, thus offsetting our "Clean Coal Technology".
You're clearly stuck in last milleniums '50's with sock hops and soda jerks. Folks these days are aware of how highly injurious Nuclear power is and about peak Uranium.
How dare you muddy my good name!
Another gimmick to confuse and fire up the ignorant masses. This reminds me of the 1950's when every crackpot inventor came up with a method to turn black and white tv into color, none worked of course. The only thing that worked was getting realistic and buying a color tv.
Same thing here, instead of viewing this from a "GREEN" point of view how about seeing it purely from a logical point of view? It's simple, How can you "generate" not create as many love to say, electricity that is cheap, reliable and able to ramp up instantly to meet demand if required?
The answer to anyone with a realistic not inflated IQ is Nuclear.
Nuclear is definitely the answer... people are just too scared of disaster. Hows about they put all the reactors way out in the boonies like they plan on doing with the wind turbines...
What's the chance a reactor will fail and cause fallout anyway? How many times has it happened in history? People want to complain about fossil fuels but don't want to move on to technology that we know works and can produce power cleanly and efficiently.
Nuclear is bad. It's unsustainable and extremely toxic and the tech antiquated. Fact is our Sun delivers all the power we need and more so. For proof, see life on earth.
The sun radiates 174,423,000,000,000 kilowatt hours of energy to the earth per hour.
Solar is awesome... if only the creation of panels didn't include toxic components, and if only we didn't have to cover half of Texas to power the country. And what about the ecological ramifications of covering vast amounts of land with solar panels? The solar energy is not wasted in nature, but is converted into heat, food, and other forms of energy. Converting that energy on a massive scale would affect weather, local ecosystems, and who knows what else. The fact is that no source of energy can be found that has no effect on the environment.
I'm firmly in the camp of pro-nuclear, those who say technology is antiquated isn't realizing that it's not just phones that have advanced over the past 50 years (and even 50 years ago the tech was impressive... all the disasters we hear about were from plants not following the proper regulations already in place). Within the next 10 years (or less) we'll see nuclear plants that can destroy nuclear waste as part of the process... so says my MIT Ph.D buddy currently finishing his thesis in nuclear engineering. (Disagree? Do YOU have a Ph.D in nuclear engineering/physics? Or is there some other impressive reason I should listen to you instead of the experts?)
It would be stupid to put all our 'eggs' in one basket, having all types of energy sources is the smartest bet, fueling the capitalistic desires to develop and innovate. Blindly refusing any form of energy is foolish.
@ required: the sun didn't envision life on earth creating auto mobiles, electricity and all our other power hungry delights.
Wonderboy, about 1 to 2 per cent of the energy coming from the sun is converted into wind energy (which by the way is about 50 to 100 times more than the energy converted into biomass by all plants on earth). In other words, it's not all about panels. There are many different ways of harnessing the power our sun sends.
@required
How misinformed and unwillingly ingnorant you are. Nuclear comes in many different designs, there some are cannot overheat and melt down. Even when all cooling towers have been shut down.
>The sun radiates 174,423,000,000,000 kilowatt hours of energy to the earth per hour.
USA -> 2005
3.816 trillion kWh of electricity
20.8 million bbl/day of oil
604 billion cu m of natural gas
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications...
the sun is to small to save you.
They look like giant fly swatters, or my Grandma's curlers.
If they could install some in Scarborough and have them store energy and then when there's no waves "reverse the thrusters" and get these things to make waves then that'd be cool.
I'd be up for surfing the giant hair curler waves.
On that point what's to stop people swimming out and riding them back and forth in some new slo mo extreme sport? The fact that they're yellow?
Anyway
I'm betting the Orkneyites don't even have xboxes. This'll be like a slightly pointless Christmas to them. They'll be able to get rid of their gas lamps and manuscripts and enter the world of technology. They will no doubt benefit from the fount of knowledge that is the internet... or just procrastinate for hours on end and look at porn.
@Engadget ... Rarely a disappointing post from you guys, but you missed the questions we want answered!
1. Just how much power is 300 - 600 kw (aka, how many Dell XPS h2c's could we power for 1000 years on that)?
2. How cost effective is it?
These are the only things that really matter :)
Man, it's a shame usernames chosen here aren't unique. He gives me and others with the same first name a bad name.
... and I can't even prove I'm not the one above.
I would think that cold-fusion would be the holy grail of green power.....
At the 2nd James, I'm pretty sure the 1st James is not the first one to muddy your collective name.
This better not go in my surf spots!
Not to insult any of you here but for gods sake people please brush up on economics, finance and basic physics oh and a bit in the area of electricity. It's not that hard folks, when you do you will be amazed at the utter crock full of shit people who spout the green energy are spewing at you.
Samboini, what are you talking about? Fact is the sun sends a lot more energy than we as a species currently use.
It is true the first James is the newest of the three James shown above my post... you can see by hovering over the James names that the profile ID is different... so you can prove you are not the same James, but indeed, you could be the same human being with two usernames of James I believe...
An interesting device, but we'll have to see if it works as anticipated.
I think they need to change the name to Oyster Wave Inversion Energy - OWIE!
:-)
I doubt this device will ever produce more energy than is required to built, maintain and scrap it.
This thing has no hope. You should have a look at CETO if you want a true solution to power generation from wave power.