Wave Power

Kama

First, a caveat. I came across this first by less-reputable sources, as 'suppressed tech' (its been doing the rounds on rense etc) I'd be interested if anyone with an engineering background or an interest in wave could look over the Homepage. It looks brutally simple to me, but I'm admittedly non-technical.



Its a pretty simple looking wave energy setup, being distributed on free-license model, designed with very basic materials, which are big 'pro's for me. Curious as to the cons, except the obvious negative effects on marine life of slicing wires.

AngryHippie

TBH, If the idea was a runner, they would have a working model or a tested model somewhere as a feature on the site, It looks as if its been drawn in Paintbrush, and lamped into a shoddy webpage in the hopes of attracting some sort of wedge from somewhere. The idea does have potential, but whoever is running that site needs to get realistic or get professional help, as for the power transmission system, there might be a few places in the country where it would work, but the Nimbys would have none of it unless they were gettin free leccy, and if you do that they'll take up electro-alchemy just cos the power is free.
Run that through Autocad, do some sums (no pun) whack it into excel and build a test model, with the data from that then I might consider any of the numbers on that page. As for how you get 100 "Kgs" of Force (not Newtons mind) from a standard 200 litre barrel, and the total avoidance of wave intensity and storm design considerations relegates the idea to an ambitious mechanical engineers dream. Could make someone millions, but it'll take a dyson level of design, testing and marketing to make it work.

Alun

I can imagine all those steel cables getting tangled up with each other in next to no time for a start.

Cookie_Monster

Simple things like proper english and grammer would loan some credabiiity too:rolleyes:

djpbarry

Considering that the 'bob' would have to be a decent distance off-shore to make use of decent-sized waves (it looks like it's right on the shore in those images), that cable would have to be of a considerable length. Thus, I would imagine the weight of the cable would be a factor (i.e. a loss to take into consideration), along with the turbulence that the portion of the cable underwater is going to be subjected to (and the portion above water, to a lesser extent). You've also got the problem (among others) of the barrels knocking into each other. All in all, it just doesn't seem practical - transmitting power mechanically ain't a good idea.

oscarBravo

djpbarry wrote: »

Considering that the 'bob' would have to be a decent distance off-shore to make use of decent-sized waves...

I'm open to correction, but I'm pretty sure wave size gets more pronounced closer to shore. The extreme example can be seen in breakers, where the waves reach shallow water and become so tall they "fall over".

Steve

oscarBravo wrote: »

I'm open to correction, but I'm pretty sure wave size gets more pronounced closer to shore. The extreme example can be seen in breakers, where the waves reach shallow water and become so tall they "fall over".

The wavelength gets shorter as it gets shallower, In theory the energy content remains the same - that's why they get taller. In practice though, I'm sure some energy is lost due to friction with the sea bed.

Anyway,

The whole concept is flawed as a 'green' source because it requires wind to work.

This means:
a. no wind = no waves = no energy.
b. Fossil burning stations of the equivalent MW capacity have to operate in the background for when the wind stops (as with the current wind turbines).
c. our wind generation capacity is already nearing saturation.

The advantage it would have as a technology over wind turbines is that because the waves are a time lagged function of wind then wave availability would be slightly more predictable than wind.

If this concept was tidal based then I'd be all for it.

Some interesting reading
http://www.oxfordoceanics.co.uk/supergen_future_networks.pdf