Wave Power
These machines that appear to be attached to the seabed are the next generation of clean energy devices. They are deep underwater which protect them from violent storms and harsh weather conditions compared to floating above water. These machines are set to sprout off the coast of the UK in 2008. AWS Ocean Energy has developed an underwater buoy that harnesses wave energy from 50 meters below the surface. The British company says that because the entire device is underwater, it does not suffer from storms in the way that other wave-power devices do, and will not interfere with shipping.
It harnesses wave energy at a distance, through the changes in pressure that waves generate by increasing and decreasing the water column.
The buoys are hollow and filled with a compressible gas that allows the top half of the buoy to move up and down. When a wave passes over them at the surface, the additional water stacked on top of the buoy increases the local water pressure, and the upper half of the device is pushed down.
A town with 55,000 inhabitants would need half a square kilometer of seabed covered with 100 buoys to power it. Read More on Wave Power in Oregon, they are leading the country with it!
They could be effective in the North Atlantic, from Scotland down to Portugal, along the Pacific US shoreline, from San Francisco in the US up to Vancouver in Canada, along the coast of Chile, and even in South Africa and New Zealand.
But calmer seas, such as the Mediterranean do not have enough wave height to pump the buoy.
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Very clever idea, and also solves the problem of local residents complaning about other forms of renewable energy generation spoiling their views.
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fabulous technology, and right in line with the more organic small scale generation models we need to be considering. thanks for finding this.
Excellent contribution for the Environmental awareness.
Thanks for posting Informative articles.
Dinesh.
http://www.my-quotes-collection.blogspot.com
I guess out of sight out of mind, what about the environmental damage to the seabed caused while installing these devices?
Your right that there is a possibility of environmental damage to marine life on the seabed, but the same question is raised about wind energy. Should we not build wind generators because they might kill a few birds or bats...the statistics say that the amount of birds that die from wind generators are far less than other man made or natural causes, go here to learn about that. So I would say although I dont know where to look up the same statistics for marine life, I would also assume that impact on marine life on the sea bed would also be minimal...considering that man contributes to the detriment of marine life in far worse ways like over fishing and oil spills.
We will be using this technology long before the folks from Chernobyl return to their homes! A human error here could cause repairable damage, not so for Chernobyl! The use of power is another waste issue - we can use power in more practical ways by using newer adaptive technologies and still live very comfortable lives! LED lights, microwave cooking, battery cars that charge when solar, wave, wind, tidal,power are in surplus will help ballast the system, which currently wastes excess power in sinful proportion!
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