Remote Tasmanian Island To Be Powered By 'Blowhole' Energy That Harnesses Waves (theguardian.com) 94
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Technology that harnesses wave energy through a "blowhole" is being tested at a remote Tasmanian island in a project backed by federal grants and investors. When the mostly above-water unit is connected in about a month, King Island in Bass Strait will be powered by three renewables -- wave, wind and solar. And there are hopes the project can be expanded across Australia's vast southern coastline.
Wave Swell Energy co-founder Tom Denniss says the pilot will provide crucial data about the system's potential. "It's very much like an artificial blowhole," he said. "There's a big underwater chamber that's open out the front, so the water is forced into the chamber. "It pushes that air back and forth. The movement of air that spins the turbine and produces electricity." Research by the peak scientific body estimates wave energy could contribute up to 11% of the nation's energy by 2050, the equivalent of a city the size of Melbourne. The boat-like structure can generate up to 200kW of power but there are plans for larger 1,000kW models.
Wave Swell Energy co-founder Tom Denniss says the pilot will provide crucial data about the system's potential. "It's very much like an artificial blowhole," he said. "There's a big underwater chamber that's open out the front, so the water is forced into the chamber. "It pushes that air back and forth. The movement of air that spins the turbine and produces electricity." Research by the peak scientific body estimates wave energy could contribute up to 11% of the nation's energy by 2050, the equivalent of a city the size of Melbourne. The boat-like structure can generate up to 200kW of power but there are plans for larger 1,000kW models.
Remote Tasmanian Island (Score:2)
That would mean a really long power cord there, Bruce.
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Don't you know how a remote works?
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Replace the batteries Bruce!
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With a 5-digit UID, surely you remember VCRs with a remote control which was connected to the unit by a cable? We had a VHS VCR with one, but the cable was so short that you still had to get up to reach it.
Photos [palsite.com] for you young whippersnappers that don't believe me.
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Actually, no - that's the first I've heard of such. Mind you, I was definitely using Slashdot before I got (or, for that matter, felt a need for) a VCR or any form of TV-recording technology.
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awesome joke - you should do standup
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*Batteries not included
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That would mean a really long power cord there, Bruce.
It's a very very long time since remotes used cords - I mean we're talking the 70's here. Most operate using infrared these days.
Re: Remote Tasmanian Island (Score:1)
The radio system in most cars is controlled by a wired remote e.g. buttons on steering wheel
Re:Steps (Score:5, Informative)
Using anything other than solar in the worlds largest single-nation desert, is ridiculous.
King Island is not a desert.
https://www.google.com/maps/pl... [google.com]
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King Island is not a desert.
And solar panels are not compatible with grazing cattle.
Solar panels are compatible with grazing cattle (Score:2)
Solar panels are completely compatible with grazing cattle. Solar panels do not cover 100% of the land area, and grass grows fine in partial shade, something you can easily see by going outdoors and looking.
we had this conversation already. I don't know why you want to have it again.
https://www.cleanenergyresourc... [cleanenerg...eteams.org]
https://www.agriculture.com/te... [agriculture.com]
https://onpasture.com/2020/05/... [onpasture.com].
https://www.google.com/search?... [google.com]
...also, Australia is more well known for raising sheep than for cows.
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Using anything other than solar in the worlds largest single-nation desert, is ridiculous.
Tassie is pretty far south. Rains a lot there.
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Wind is the main competitor for this kind of technology.
Marine power systems are more consistent, especially those that use tides. Problem for them is that wind is already quite well developed and cheap so any advantage will be nullified simply by the shear amount of wind power available.
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Windmills produce no power when the wind does not blow. Solar panels make no power at night. Tidal power systems have their own intermittency problem. By diversifying there's a better chance of getting some power from something. This should mean less need for batteries, load shedding, curtailment, and losing money on trading energy with other grids.
That's my being an advocate, perhaps the devil's advocate.
Here's another kind of advocacy. If Australia wants a strong military to defend itself from the ma
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If you have enough windmills over a wide enough area the wind is always blowing, especially off-shore.
Batteries look like they will be a mostly temporary solution, or only needed in certain locations. Wind is so cheap that it ends up being more cost effective to just build more windmills than to bother with storage.
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Windmills even on an area as large as Australia will have correlation among the winds. Windmills take a lot of concrete and steel to build, geothermal and nuclear take less for the same energy output. I do not believe it to be cheaper to build more windmills than to diversify production and/or build storage. Material costs alone make overbuild of wind impractical, and the same applies to solar and hydro.
One source for this, Figure 2 is a chart from the US DOE:
https://cmo-ripu.blogspot.com/... [blogspot.com]
If you want
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Australia will never have any nuclear. It has never had any and the cost to build up the infrastructure and institutions, on top of nuclear being extremely expensive anyway, means it's just not an option.
Your link doesn't support your claim. In fact it's very obviously designed to mislead, being a blog post that presents bogus arguments like "the amount of material needed makes it impractical". Going all in on wind would require a 2-3% increase in global steel production, and for Australia they would source
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Australia will never have any nuclear.
Then Australia will never solve it's energy poverty problem.
Your argument that Australia will not get any nuclear power plants seems to boil down to them being so backwards technologically that they lack the technology that the USA had in 1955 to build nuclear power reactors. Australia is far from lacking the infrastructure and knowledge to build a nuclear power plant. They already mine plenty of uranium so fuel will not be a problem. What knowledge they lack they can get from the USA, Canada, and/or UK.
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Think about what a country needs to do to start using nuclear power. Australia has a supply of uranium but to use it they need to refine it, turn it into fuel rods and have a plan to dispose of it. To build the plant they need experience, which obviously they don't have since they have never had any nuclear power before. So they need to import some knowledge...
But not just knowledge to build the plant, they need a regulator to oversee the whole thing.
Then they need infrastructure to securely handle the fuel
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Captain pedantic here. Windmills, clue's in the name, are wind powered mills used to mill grain. "Wind turbine" is the term you are looking for.
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https://www.merriam-webster.co... [merriam-webster.com]
Definition of windmill
(Entry 1 of 2)
1a : a mill or machine operated by the wind usually acting on oblique vanes or sails that radiate from a horizontal shaft especially : a wind-driven water pump or electric generator
b : the wind-driven wheel of a windmill
2 : something that resembles or suggests a windmill especially : a calisthenic exercise that involves alternately lowering each outstretched hand to touch the toes of the opposite foot
3 [from the episode in Don Quixote by Cervantes in which the hero attacks windmills under the illusion that they are giants] : an imaginary wrong, evil, or opponent â"usually used in the phrase to tilt at windmills
I found the term I was looking for just fine, captain.
Re: Steps (Score:2)
Your definition is an example of a word which originally had a specific meaning, but is now co
Re:Steps (Score:4, Informative)
If you have enough windmills over a wide enough area the wind is always blowing, especially off-shore.
Batteries look like they will be a mostly temporary solution, or only needed in certain locations. Wind is so cheap that it ends up being more cost effective to just build more windmills than to bother with storage.
In my area, we have the Allegheny escarpment, where the wind just doesn't stop. We've been building wind turbines all along it, and they have been serving us well. At first we used them for peaking, but now there is enough for steady supply and even backups to each other. There is no longer even any serious discussion of coal or nuc plants any more.
Not every place has that luxury, but most places do have something they can exploit.
Some people have been wondering why try to exploit tidal action in an area that probably has other resources - it's because they can, and there is a lot of energy to extract. 200KW isn't much, but this is more like just 1 step beyond proof of concept.
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I thought I'd look up how windy the island might be. This is what I found:
https://www.windfinder.com/win... [windfinder.com]
A quick Google search tells me that a windmill needs a minimum of 14 mph winds to produce power. One chart on my linked page shows the wind speed average of 14 mph most days. The guess is that windmill blades will not be spinning half the time.
I doubt this wave power experiment is intended for some other location. The island will likely be reliant on an undersea cable or diesel generators when the
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MacMann writes "Windmills produce no power when the wind does not blow". King Island is VERY windy, and this blowhole thing must be research aimed at other locations. Great beef and cheese though.
There are many places where the wind is essentially constant. The Allegheny escarpment is one of them, and we've been exploiting that for quite a few years now. No storage needed, backup turbines as well.
There is zero agitation to go nuc here any more.
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The Australian mainland also has lots of uranium ore. But we're talking about a small island here.
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Australia has nuclear reactors https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] and before that https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org].
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You mean like the Lucas Heights reactor (for the nuclear medical facility)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Re:Steps (Score:5, Insightful)
1. This is a research project. So the goal is not to produce electricity for the local market, but to explore the concept.
2. This is fine for research, but wave power is unlikely to ever pan out. The capital cost is prohibitively high. Saltwater is corrosive. Doing anything mechanical or electrical in saltwater will cost 3 times as much as you expect even if you have already accounted for the fact the saltwater makes everything cost 3 times as much as you expect.
Their "house-boat-sized" contraption generates 200kw. That may sound like a lot, but the wholesale price of electricity is about 3 cents per kwh. Do you really think you are going to finance, staff, and maintain your system for $6 per hour?
perhaps reasonable in some locations (Score:5, Interesting)
True. Mechanics + salt water is demanding.
However, the local electricity price may not be 30 cent. At some remote locations electricity is far more expensive. Yes, a wind turbine (far above most salt water spray) + batteries and perhaps solar sounds more reasonable. But perhaps something in the local energy requirements profile make it worthwhile. In special circumstances - like for example buoys with navigation lights - I imagine wave power could be a good choice.
Re:perhaps reasonable in some locations (Score:5, Interesting)
At some remote locations electricity is far more expensive.
Perhaps. But labor and maintenance costs are likely to be higher as well.
for example buoys with navigation lights
For some tiny niches, like a light on a buoy, wave power may make sense.
But TFA is talking about powering 11% of Australia's national grid. That is never going to happen.
It is important to note that the people making this claim are burning through taxpayer-funded grants, not investing their own money.
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Yes, powering 11% sound like marketing speech. Especially in a country with so reliable solar input.
The technology itself however, could possibly have interesting and relevant applications even if the hype is unrealistic.
Something generating wave power with no moving parts would be more interesting. Or at lest no water-facing moving parts.
Re: Steps (Score:4, Funny)
Their "house-boat-sized" contraption generates 200kw. That's equivalent to 400 Tasmanian Tigers wired in series.
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I think you mean Tasmanian devils. Tasmanian tigers went extinct in 1936.
I once visited the Hobart Zoo at feeding time. The devils are fed male chicks. It was an interesting spectacle.
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I think you mean Tasmanian devils. Tasmanian tigers went extinct in 1936.
That's because they extracted too much power from the poor critters.
I once visited the Hobart Zoo at feeding time. The devils are fed male chicks. It was an interesting spectacle.
Oh, that must be a dream come true for the local feminists.
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The devils are fed male chicks. It was an interesting spectacle.
The next time you see pictures of those giant egg farms, now you know where the roosters are. This is common practice, btw. There's a wildlife refuge in the mountains near me and that's what they feed their bald eagles (they call it a zoo but it's for animals that have been injured or otherwise are unable to be reintroduced).
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New utility-scale solar is at 3 cents/kwh. So that is the competition.
There is no way that wave power is going to beat that. Not even close.
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New utility-scale solar is at 3 cents/kwh. So that is the competition.
Not in the night-time it ain't.
What is the storage cost of solar? Mainland Tassie has plenty of hydro-electric, so good potential for pumped-hyro storage.
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New utility-scale solar is at 3 cents/kwh. So that is the competition.
There is no way that wave power is going to beat that. Not even close.
Utilities contract the price they pay based on factors like reliability. Solar is cheap because it is not reliable.
Bad car analogy time...
I have a solar car here. It runs only when the sun shines. In the morning and evening it's a bit sluggish but it's a race car at noon. Which means a daily average miles out of it is 30% of it's theoretical maximum. We get such little use out of this that if you catch us at the right time we'll let you ride for free.
I have a wind car here. It likes to run in the earl
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Grid battery storage will destroy the economics of solar power. If grid batteries catch on then solar will be competing with natural gas, coal, and nuclear on a different playing field.
Perhaps. But we also need to level the playing by internalizing various externalities, especially CO2 emission. Right now, we allow fossil fuel plants to emit arbitrary amounts of CO2 and expect everyone else to cover the cost of the damage it does. We need to stop allowing fossil fuels to free-ride in this way. I suspect that alone will price natural gas and coal out of the competition, unless some cheap carbon capture and sequestration technology is invented.
Nuclear likewise needs to have the waste dis
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It's impossible to internalize externalities.
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I think what the poster means is taxing CO2 as much as it takes to make it cost prohibitive to create any energy using a method that produces it as a byproduct.
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It's impossible to internalize externalities.
Nonsense. It just requires application of external controls, e.g. regulation.
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This could actually reduce the price of nuclear, because now the nuclear power plant can run at higher capacity factor, sell more energy, and pay off it's capital expense faster.
Respectfully, I disagree with this statement. An essential part of the green movement is as complete a transition away from the fossil fuel economy as possible. However a complete transition simply isn't practical when it comes to production of plastics or fuels for certain types of vehicles (e.g. jumbo jets). There are essentially only two ways around this: either we continue to pump and burn oil (with the concomitant increase in atmospheric CO2), or we capture CO2 and convert it back into fuels so it can
It's an island. [Re:Steps] (Score:2)
In Australia (where this project is) the wholesale electricity price is around 7 - 10 cents per kwh:
In Australia, like on most continents, electrical wholesale prices vary from location to location. Tasmania (an island OFF of Australia), as a whole, averages 26.4 (AUS) cents per kWh.
But King island, as it turns out, is an island not connected to the electrical grid on Tasmania (much less the Australian continent). Electricity prices are much higher. The part of their electricity that isn't renewable (wind) runs off of diesel fuel brought in on ships. It's not cheap.
By the way, a nice look at renewables
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Re:Steps (Score:4, Interesting)
1. This is a research project. So the goal is not to produce electricity for the local market, but to explore the concept.
2. This is fine for research, but wave power is unlikely to ever pan out. The capital cost is prohibitively high. Saltwater is corrosive. Doing anything mechanical or electrical in saltwater will cost 3 times as much as you expect even if you have already accounted for the fact the saltwater makes everything cost 3 times as much as you expect.
Their "house-boat-sized" contraption generates 200kw. That may sound like a lot, but the wholesale price of electricity is about 3 cents per kwh. Do you really think you are going to finance, staff, and maintain your system for $6 per hour?
Something tells me that if we can design and maintain nuc electrical generation facilities, and have their pieces survive in an intensely radioactive environment, and even build sodium cooled fast reactors, we might just be able to figure out how to operate in a saltwater environment.
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Something tells me that if we can design and maintain nuc electrical generation facilities, and have their pieces survive in an intensely radioactive environment, and even build sodium cooled fast reactors, we might just be able to figure out how to operate in a saltwater environment.
Undoubtedly. But how much will that cost (i.e. £/MWh) compared to other sources of power?
This proposed tidal power project [tidallagoonpower.com] got mothballed / cancelled by the UK government* based, as far as I can tell, largely on the proposed price of energy, and tidal lagoons are simpler structures than most wave powered devices.
*Mucking Fuppets!
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Something tells me that if we can design and maintain nuc electrical generation facilities, and have their pieces survive in an intensely radioactive environment, and even build sodium cooled fast reactors, we might just be able to figure out how to operate in a saltwater environment.
Undoubtedly. But how much will that cost (i.e. £/MWh) compared to other sources of power?
This proposed tidal power project [tidallagoonpower.com] got mothballed / cancelled by the UK government* based, as far as I can tell, largely on the proposed price of energy, and tidal lagoons are simpler structures than most wave powered devices.
*Mucking Fuppets!
It is a matter of location and if technology, sometimes new supports it.
Way back in the late 1970's, there was a lot of Students where I worked that were working on class projects with tidal power generation. It was interesting stuff, and most people had problems with practicality. Some with having a bad power generation paradigm to begin with. And that's the thing with almost all technology. It isn't born great. Some of what I have worked on was first conceived in the 1930's. It just took that long to h
Nazare, Portugal giant waves bitcoin generator (Score:2)
I think there's a James Bond movie script in here somewhere with a band of bitcoin mining outlaws attempting to take over the town of Nazare, Portugal to steal the giant waves for powering their massive bitcoin mining operation. Daniel Craig plays Bond while the bitcoin kingpin
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Holy shitballs you suck at geography. Tasmania =/= Australia.
Holy shitballs you suck at actually reading the summary.
The research is being done in Tasmania. The plan is to deploy them along the southern coast of Australia.
Still not a desert [Re:Steps] (Score:2)
Holy shitballs you suck at geography. Tasmania =/= Australia.
Holy shitballs you suck at actually reading the summary. The research is being done in Tasmania. The plan is to deploy them along the southern coast of Australia.
And the southern tip of Australia isn't a desert, either. Melbourne, the biggest city on the southern coast, gets 53 cm of rain a year. That's not even close to "desert".
It's a continent. Just because it has a desert doesn't mean that the whole continent is a desert.
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Holy shitballs you suck at geography. Tasmania =/= Australia.
Holy shitballs you suck at actually reading the summary.
The research is being done in Tasmania. The plan is to deploy them along the southern coast of Australia.
Holy fucking shitballs raised to fuckall square factorial, you still suck at geography. The southern coast of Australia ain't a damned desert. But sure, here you are thinking the country is nothing but outback with hopping kangaroos and shit. Please go on, but this time impersonating Crocodile Dundee.
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whatever energy source you have (renewable or not!!) , you should always have OTHER energy sources, relying only on one type you are asking for problems. Sun do not shine during night, there may not have wind, strike or transport problem for coal, gas pipe blow up, nuclear maintenance or meltdown, no rain! multiple sources help you in many ways
Blowhole Energy? So Trump is moving to Australia? (Score:2, Flamebait)
No! No! Say it ain’t so!
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Mar-A-Lago finally went green!
Oscillating water column (Score:3)
https://www.researchgate.net/f... [researchgate.net]
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This is Australia, not Hawaii. And its a tech company with "the next big thing" and not some union make-work thing (maybe the guys working on it are union but its certainly something the people building it intend to turn into real money if this pilot project works)
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The very first sentence of TFA states that it is financed with tax dollars.
So, no, this is not being done by dashing and courageous entrepreneurs risking it all on the bleeding edge.
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The very first sentence of TFA states that it is financed with tax dollars.
So, that makes this a gamble by politicians with other people's money? What are the odds this actually proves profitable? My guess is any endeavor that has to turn to the government for funding has already exhausted all means of gaining private funding. Private funding is certainly preferable to public funding. With public funding the government owns a piece of any intellectual property and/or the intellectual property is more readily available to competitors. That is unless it's a military contract or
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So, that makes this a gamble by politicians with other people's money?
Yes, just like most basic research ever conducted.
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This is not basic research. This is applied research. Basic research is how the universe works kinds of things. Things with no known immediate applications.
I don't have a problem with basic research funded by the government. There's no telling what can come from knowing fundamentals of physics and mathematics. I can even support applied research when this has the benefits of national security and economic development. NACA, the precursor to NASA, did research into airfoils that helped in developing la
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> So, no, this is not being done by dashing and courageous entrepreneurs risking it all on the bleeding edge.
Well, that's innovation for you. We rarely depend on the private sector to do it largely because, well, they don't. The public sector is involved at one point or another in most new innovative technology. Is this a surprise?
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OTEC was a experiment in Hawaii using temp differential of the deep ocean.
Pilot project, then crickets.
This describes every project in Hawaii other than tourist resorts. You can't build anything there. Not a research telescope with zero environmental impact, not even anything as useful and obvious and environment-friendly as a ferryboat to carry people between islands. Carbon-blasting airline flights are the only travel option.
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
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Let me guess, it's also been funded by tax money and has never shown a profit. Amiright?
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Re: Been done. (Score:1)
Mmm (Score:2)
I don't understand why, if seawater is forced through a blowhole generating a lot of energy, you'd then try to tap the AIR that comes out.
Air is compressible, so most of the energy goes into compressing that air, and that's not all going to come out of whatever hole you've equipped. A ton is going to be lost in just squeezing the air around the cave/hole it's in and never come out at all.
Meanwhile the seawater that's coming into that hole is comparatively solid, high-energy, can be harnessed directly and y
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Because that way your expensive and high precision turbine blades do not have to go with salt water, fish or other debris banging into them. So you can use a standard air turbine which fits tightly and thus efficiently into its nacelle. That would be my guess.
Re:Mmm (Score:4, Insightful)
Because you either are getting the energy you need or your don't. It doesn't matter how much energy was put into the original process as you aren't the one putting it in. All that matters is whether they are getting what they want out of it. Efficiency is not relevant because they aren't paying the price of the lack of it.
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Australia wants to be be seen as green. (Score:2, Troll)
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Australia will still need nuclear fission power (Score:2, Troll)
I watched a handful of YouTube videos recently about Australia's energy problem. I'm seeing people get nuclear fission power very right and very wrong. One claim made is that Australia can do fine without nuclear power because of it's ample supply of energy from wind, water, and sun when combined with battery and other storage systems. There's an argument there, often not a good one, but there is an argument. Such arguments are based on some assumed advancements in technology that may not come. One com
Anything but diesel (Score:2)
Small islands, which are usually powered by diesel generators, are the best places to try out oddball small renewable sources like wave action. They can be laboratories not just for power sources, but for energy combinations that wouldn't even be contemplated anywhere else. A small island can run on two wind turbines with a Tesla Powerwall.