My 2 GREEN cents

[virgin]

I'm posting this thread in the hopes that the word will spread faster on my ideas on how to help us become more green in the fight on global warming.

 

firstly global warming is upon us whether you would believe it or not.

 

One of my ideas would be to harness the power of the sea to produce electricity. Would this be feasable? If the ocean's natural high-low tides can be used to fill a large pool and simply drain back out into the ocean safely.

 

the ocean has enormous potential. how about if we can use the ocean to fill a large cylinder that could push a vehicle inside a tube that spans an entire continent. perhaps even use that same energy to vacuum the polutants from the air in congested cities at street level.

[big314mp]

I'm not exactly sure what the second premise entails...perhaps you could explain more clearly?

 

The first part is already being realized (sort of) in the form of wave power:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wave_power

 

Portugal seems to be making a good amount of headway on it.

[NeonBlack]

Yeah, one time I had a couple of pennies that were heavily oxidized. You can probably clean them with some vinegar.

 

Edit: Sorry, I didn't actually read your post.

 

In response:

1. This was thought of years ago.

2. Maybe we can build a giant Hoover with a HEPA in it.

[virgin]

I'm not exactly sure what the second premise entails...perhaps you could explain more clearly?

 

Using the natural power of the rise and fall of oceans to fill a cylinder with seawater and then to use that pressure to pneumatically push an object through a tunnel.

the same type of application in force could create such a vacuum to suck up polution caused from cars and industrial areas from a network of tunnels and filter it.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wave_power

Portugal seems to be making a good amount of headway on it.

 

The wave machine, the wave converter and all the inventions i've seen in that wiki are for harvesting waves natural energy.

what i am thinking of is quite differrent as the australians have devised the way to hydraulically pump water into a basin for desalinization and to power hydroelectric generators when the water is released , however it is not very practical.

what I am thinking of is simply allowing the waters to naturally flow into a hydroelectric plant and release it into a canal that leads back to the ocean in a meandering path.

 

I have some interesting theories on how the water could enter the resovoir but this brings challenges on how to release it back such as building the powerplant some 1000 ft below sea level on shore and let it rush it, however i am not thinking of a more natural way to have the water return.

[big314mp]

The one problem I see is that this would only be feasible in areas where the tides are very high. The amount of energy that can be extracted is given by E=mgh, so if h (height) is small, then m (mass) has to be very large to get any substantial energy.