Scotland Building Wave Power Farms 211
eldavojohn writes "Scottish engineers are taking advantage of the huge ocean coast that Scotland enjoys by building a 'wave farm' to harvest electricity from the ocean's powerful waves. These big red tubes have been named the Pelamis System after a sea snake. Max Carcas, the business developer for the firm, says it is 'a bit like a ship at anchor or a flag on a flagpole, it self orientates into the waves ... Waves then travel down the length of the machine and in doing so each of the sections, each of these train carriages, moves up and down and side to side.' These snake-like movements push hydraulic fluid through generators to produce electricity."
'Bout time... (Score:2, Funny)
I mean, what's it ever done for us? Nothing!
Generating a little electricity will only start repaying what its mother and I have given it over the years.
Now if we could just get it to move out of our basement or start paying rent...
Geez!
Obligatory Quote from a Scottish Engineer (Score:5, Funny)
Environmental Impact: Scotland the Wave (Score:5, Funny)
Its just like those people who advocate wind power and never consider the impact of slowing down the world's winds, thus reducing the natural spread of wind-bourne seeds and so on...
Re:Power output? (Score:1, Funny)
Gas and oil are clean and unlimited, there's really no need for anything else.
What are these people thinking?
This sounds strangely familiar... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Environmental Impact: Scotland the Wave (Score:1, Funny)
Re:Development costs irrelevant to deployment ... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Environmental Impact: Scotland the Wave (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Environmental Impact: Scotland the Wave (Score:2, Funny)
A much bigger problem is that the waves are generated by the pull from the moon (or so I was told). If we reduce the amount or amplitude of ocean waves, this could have an effect on the moon.
Think about it... just like current can create a magnetic field and a magnetic field can create a current, the gravitational pull from the moon is creating waves.
If we stop these waves, the moon's orbit could change.
We will all die because we wanted to create clean energy.
Let's stop this madness before it's too late.