New Scottish Wave Energy Generator Unveiled

MikeChino writes "We've learned about Scotland's wave energy initiatives in the past, and just this morning the nation unveiled Aquamarine Power's next-generation Oyster 800 wave power plant. The new generator can produce 250% more power at one third the cost of the first full-scale 315kw Oyster that was installed in Orkney in 2009. The device's shape has been modified and made wider to enable it to capture more wave energy, and a double seabed pile system allows for easier installation."

Re:That's nice...

[chaered]

If those numbers are correct for the original, and the summary is correct with its "250% more power at one third the cost", that would drop the new version to $11,000 / 3.5 / 3 = $1,047/kW, less than what you quote for coal (disregarding operating costs, which I have no idea of). Unless they mean the 250% extra works out to one-third the per-Watt cost, which would imply $11,000 / 3 = $3666, not bad but a bit pricey. Don't know which cost TFA refers to (old system or new one); anybody know?

Re:The Doomsday Scenario

[Amouth]

I know it's bad form to link your your self but i did the work for this last them we talkd about it.

http://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1643562&cid=32116814 [slashdot.org]

well based on what i have read - as the moon/tidal effeects work the earth is slowing down and the moon is gaining potential energy related to earths gravity well by moving farther away - assume this is a colosed energy system..

assume we pull energy out of it.. the moon will come closer to earth (or reduce it's movement away) - so the total energy supply would be the potential energy of the moon in relation to earths gravity well.

PE = m x g x h

m = 7.3477 × 10^22 kg
g = 9.8 m/s2
h = 363,104,000 m (using it's Periapsis)

PE = 2.61461968 × 10^32 Joules

474 × 10^18 = AEC = whole planet annual energy consumption

PE/AEC = 551,607,527,000 years....

so the answer is .. keep current rates.. and assume we could get it all from here.. 550 billion years..

according to this #19
http://helios.gsfc.nasa.gov/qa_sun.html [nasa.gov] [nasa.gov]

"In about 5 billion more years, the useable hydrogen (not all the hydrogen) will have been converted to helium, and the Sun will start burning helium, and become a red giant."

if i remember right.. if it goes red giant it will grow larger than 1 AU so it will engulf earth..

basically.. we could increase energy consumption by a factor of 100 and only then would we be toying with maybe crashing the moon into us before the sun burns us away.