Giant Snake-Shaped Generators Could Capture Wave Power

Roland Piquepaille writes "UK researchers have developed a prototype of a future giant rubber tube which could catch energy from sea waves. The device, dubbed Anaconda, uses 'long sea waves to excite bulge waves which travel along the wall of a submersed rubber tube. These are then converted into flows of water passing through a turbine to generate electricity.' So far, the experiments have been done with tubes with diameters of 0.25 and 0.5 meters. But if the experiments are successful, future full-scale Anaconda devices would be 200 meters long and 7 meters in diameter, and deployed in water depths of between 40 and 100 meters. An Anaconda would deliver an output power of 1MW (enough to power 2,000 houses). These devices would be deployed in groups of 20 or even more providing cheap electricity without harming our environment."

say that again?

'long sea waves to excite bulge waves which travel along the wall of a submersed rubber tube. These are then converted into flows of water passing through a turbine to generate electricity.'

and called the anaconda?

i don't know if this scheme will work, but hands down, that is the most sexual innuendo i've heard in an energy generation scheme in a long time

Not So Funny: Threshold of Renewable Resources

In the long run, the only readily available sources of energy are renewable sources: solar energy and terrestrial energy (e.g., wind and waves). Each person consumes a minimum amount of energy to live, and the aggregate amount consumed by the entire population cannot exceed some fraction of total renewable energy. The reason for the fraction is that no conversion process (for, say, transforming solar energy into electrical energy) is 100% efficient. (A while ago, some genius in the SlashDot forums gave an explicit number for the "fraction".)

Right now, the sky-high price for oil is useful in reminding us that there are limits to our resources. If we do not make a conscientious effort to control population growth, then nature will impose a solution on us. That solution will be poverty and likely starvation. If you doubt what I say, consider the huge amounts of energy that is needed to grow and to transport food.

Right now, I suspect that our population is unsustainably large due to the fact that we still have plentiful supplies of non-renewable sources (e.g., oil and uranium). So, our energy consumption = (1) usuable energy from non-renewable sources + (2) usuable energy from renewable sources. After #1 is depleted by roughly 2100 (?), a global world war for resources will dwarf the calamity of World War II. (By the way, we will deplete our mineral resources like copper and iron ore long before we deplete our non-renewable sources of energy.)

Will humankind wake up to the problem of overpopulation? In the USA, political correctness prevents us from dealing with the problem. The American mantra is that (1) expanding the population is always wonderful and (2) expanding the population by immigration is the best route.

renewables are boutique

just go nuclear and conserve

going nuclear should give us enough time to figure out fusion. and if we don't, it's curtains

but renewables: geothermal, wind, tidal, etc... it's all tiny fractions of demand

except for solar. but that's a huge infrastructure outlay

nuclear is the best option before us to kick our hydrocarbon habit

Re:Not So Funny: Threshold of Renewable Resources

Where "long run" means a thousand years, yes. Why are we looking that far forward anyway? Whaats the point about saying we have too many people while new methods of energy generation are constantly being built?

While solar power in all forms is the only thing we know has a high probability of being around in a billion years, nuclear power will last us, at the least, 300 years. Even the pessimists can agree that we'll have nuclear fusion within 200 years. So thats it! nuclear fusion until nuclear fission is sorted out. All of man's energy needs in a simple two step plan!

poverty! global war! starvation! calamity! our population is unsustainable!

will you please stop mongering fear and get realistic!? And don't event start with the "nuclear waste" blather because nuclear power can safely generate enough energy to make chemicals to launch all waste into the sun and have all the energy we'll need left over!

Re:Not So Funny: Threshold of Renewable Resources

enough energy to make chemicals to launch all waste into the sun and have all the energy we'll need left over!

Will you please stop with this "nuclear waste" blather? "Nuclear waste" is just "nuclear fuel that we're too lame to recycle yet".

Re:Not So Funny: Threshold of Renewable Resources

We're not over-populated. Take every single living person on this earth. All 6.6 billion. Stick them on the land mass of Texas only (none of the lakes or rivers). You'll have lower population density than greater New York City and most of the European capitals.

Now take the remaining farmland in the US, Alberta, and Saskatchewan. Don't convert an acre of forest, park, or city. No mountains, or prairies. Only the existing farmland. You can grow enough food for everyone (via a vegetarian diet).

Now take the fresh water outflow of the Columbia river - the river separating Washington from Oregon. You've got 27 gallons of fresh water per person per day.

Now put 700 nuclear plants in the deserts of Nevada. You have enough power for everyone to live at the energy consumption level of the US.

Go do the research, you'll see this all to be true. We could support every single person on the face of the earth within 40% of the North American continent. No one on any other continent, island, or waterway.

There aren't too many people; the issue is distribution of the resources. That is a political - not scientific - problem. We could feed the world and provide fresh water for everyone, if we could get countries to agree.

And note that it is almost always the country that would benefit that restricts the offer of aid. Think Myanmar, Zimbabwe, Haiti, Turkmenistan, North Korea. Those countries are stricken with poverty because of the G8 or the first world; they are stricken because twisted, maniacal leaders are power-drunk.

Overpopulated? Not by a long shot. Poor distribution? Sure. The solution is to encourage free and expanded trade - and in some cases like Zimbabwe and Myanmar - a few well placed bullets. Economic growth is required to free more people.

And when there's more people with freedom and no longer having to worry about their next meal, or their next drink of water, you'll find a lot more participation in solving other big problems facing the world.

Re:Not So Funny: Threshold of Renewable Resources

In the long run, the only readily available sources of energy are renewable sources: solar energy and terrestrial energy (e.g., wind and waves).

Almost all of the energy we use comes from the sun, with nuclear and geothermal being (the) exceptions. The main difference is whether we're using the energy as the sun is producing it (wind, wave, solar) or we're using energy that's been stored from previous eons of sunlight (coal, oil). So I agree with what you're saying insofar as we shouldn't be using more energy than the sun is giving us right now, and we should strive to make that come from the current energy output rather than stored output.

Right now, the sky-high price for oil is useful in reminding us that there are limits to our resources.

(By the way, we will deplete our mineral resources like copper and iron ore long before we deplete our non-renewable sources of energy.)

But I'm going to have to disagree with you here. We will never actually run out of copper or iron or oil. As the amount of these resources that is naturally occurring decreases, the price will rise to the point that: (A) It becomes cost-efficent to dig through landfills and recycle previously used resources, and (B) other materials that were previously too expensive for the application will now be cost-effective.

Re:Baby got back

Thank God someone finally gave Sir Mix-a-Lot [wikipedia.org] the long overdue credit he richly deserves as a true environmentalist, humanitarian, and supporter of renewable bun energy extraction technologies. It's about time we broke the oil cartels' blockage on innovation and hooked up generators to all those pulsating rumps!

I say, let them do all the side bends and situps they want, since the calories expending in diminishing that rump will surely guide us into a new era of plentiful energy for all.

Sounds interesting

And has a fairly small footprint for a 20 Megawatt solution - might be a good fit for small to moderate coastal towns.

I just want to see the boat captain who wanders unknowingly into a field of these things at night. Snakes on a boat!

Re:Sounds interesting

Well, if the boat captain finds himself at 40 to 100 meters depth, he has other things to worry about.

One possible problem

I didn't see anything in TFA, but one wonders if they've considered sediment buildup around the device. Do they have some way to keep sand/sediment from burying the machine?

Re:One possible problem

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VamSAbwgJKk [youtube.com]

It doesn't sit on the sea floor.

Re:One possible problem

One important factor there is whether or not energy at the coastline is beneficial, harmful, or neutral to the coastline (and the marine life there). If a reduction in energy has a neutral effect on marine life and reduces erosion, a reduction of energy may actually be a good thing.

It's about time

I saw this yesterday, and using nature to generate energy is absolutely right. Think outside the paradigm, generate energy everywhere, use less of it everywhere... this is the solution, no single answer will work, it takes all efforts and answers. Anywhere the universe creates energy, we should be able to harness and use it. This is the grail, holy or not, energy for nothing.... or close to that.

Re:It's about time

Don't forget we're slowing the moon's orbit around the Earth which inevitably will lead to the moon falling into the Earth.

Would someone get those...

motherfucking snake generators on the motherfucking grid!

Intercourse the penguins

These devices would be deployed in groups of 20 or even more providing cheap electricity without harming our environment."

I think this underestimates the ability of someone, somewhere being able to find a problem with anything. Hydropower dams wild rivers. Windmills smack birds out of the air. Photovoltaics pave over entire deserts. Probably Anacondas will interfere with the lifecycle of some species or other. One day we'll realize that any energy system is going to have some ill effects and say, "Intercourse the penguins, I need to microwave my popcorn."

Re:Intercourse the penguins

Windmills smack birds out of the air.

To be fair, a glass-faced office building will kill far more birds than a windmill.

The "smacking birds out of the air" is due to birds flying into the windmills as if they were a stationary object. The blades don't spin nearly fast enough to do any "smacking."

Actually putting a number on the rate of bird deaths is somewhat controversial, as its fairly difficult to count them, given that it happens so infrequently.

Re:Intercourse the penguins

"Actually putting a number on the rate of bird deaths is somewhat controversial, as its fairly difficult to count them, given that it happens so infrequently."

Clearly, we must build more wind farms so that we can gather more accurate data!

Re:Intercourse the penguins

1700 to 4700 birds die in the windmill farm in Alameda County near the Altamont Pass. Now, that's a ridiculously vague number

Altamont pass has over 4900 windmills. Even on the upper-end of that estimate, it's less than one per year. That's fairly "infrequent"

Also, you're right that the estimate is "ridiculously vague". You can't draw conclusions based on data with a 50% margin of error. If you're getting that kind of error, there's something seriously wrong with your data.

New Method, Old Concept

There are about 30+ companies that exist, which capture 'wave' power. Two to come to mind are Ocean Power Technologies & Blue Energy, though to me, Blue Energy's method seems more efficient since it uses predictable current, rather than waves, to generate power.

More Energy

Sure, CO2 from generating electricty might be a problem. But no matter how you slice it, using energy contributes to climate change in various ways.

If you believe that humans are causing the climate to change, the answer is fewer humans. Lots fewer. You can argue that before 1850 humans (all 50 million or so of them) had negligible effects on the climate. After that, well there has been an effect.
Continued growth of human population is going to be having a greater and greater effect. There is no getting away from it.

Re:More Energy

If you believe that humans are causing the climate to change, the answer is fewer humans. Lots fewer.

Or the answer could be that each human should have less impact, starting with those with the MOST impact... the people in the USA.

IEEE article on wave power generators

The July issue of IEEE Spectrum (hitting mailboxes in the last couple days) has an article about this, with a really cool picture.

Ocean Power Catches a Wave [ieee.org]

"The first commercial ocean energy project is scheduled to launch this summer off the coast of Portugal. Three snakelike wave-power generators built by Edinburgh's Pelamis Wave Power will deliver 2.25 megawatts through an undersea cable to the Portuguese coastal town of Aguçadoura. Within a year, another 28 generators should come online there, boosting the capacity to 22.5 MW. That may be a trickle of power, but the project represents a new push into wave and tidal power as governments eye the oceans as a way to meet their renewable energy targets."

Re:Better description

But this shows a better image. [wipo.int]