Wave Power

[Airbrush]

I haven't heard of this, has anyone? It must be possible to harness the power of waves rushing to and from shore. How about harnessing the power of tides going in and out twice daily?

 

I've seen the wave-power-generating "wigglers" (I'm not sure what they are called) that are rafts connected in such a way that as they wiggle from waves they generate power. Maybe these could be connected to wind turbines off shore.

[pwagen]

I think connecting them to wind turbines would be kind of redundant, since the "wigglers" (I have no idea what they're called either) are supposed to generate the power?

 

Last I heard, there is some research being done on them. They have several advantages compared to wind turbines. For example, they're quite invisible to common people, since they're on the ocean floor and all. Don't know about power output, but I can imagine it's quite good if you build a field of them.

 

http://en.wikipedia....iki/Tidal_power

 

Edit: Grammar correction, still not sure if it's correct.

Edited May 4, 2011 by pwagen

[Airbrush]

Thanks for your thoughts pwagon. The wigglers are called "attenuators". They float on the surface and as waves pass under them the segments flex and generate power. There are a number of diverse methods to extract power from ocean waves. Tides can also generate power like a dam in which water flows both ways twice each day.

 

I think you can have more dams on the same river, but dams are expensive to build.

 

I only thought of connecting the attenuators to off shore wind turbines because the infrastructure for one can be used for the other. They could work together to send power along the same cables to shore.

 

http://ocsenergy.anl.gov/guide/wave/index.cfm

 

"Attenuators are long multisegment floating structures oriented parallel to the direction of the waves. The differing heights of waves along the length of the device causes flexing where the segments connect, and this flexing is connected to hydraulic pumps or other converters."

Edited May 4, 2011 by Airbrush

[TonyMcC]

Harnessing the tides has already been done. http://www.reuk.co.uk/La-Rance-Tidal-Power-Plant.htm

There has been a proposal to construct a similar, but much larger, barrier across the River Severn in the UK. I understand that this project has recently been "put on the back burner".

[Airbrush]

Thanks for the photo of a tide generator. Interesting. They should cost much less to build than dams, because tide generators only need to be a little higher than water level. They would need to be firmly anchored to the estuary floor and would be most effective if they were miles long.

[CaptainPanic]

The Pelamis wave energy converter (link to wikipedia, link to commercial site) can convert wave power to electricity. It's a big sea snake, which generate power when they are bended (picture).

 

As usual with sustainable energy from waves, wind or solar, it needs to be pretty freakin' big to get any real energy from it. From this picture (source website), it seems Pelamis are on the right track.

[Airbrush]

Nice news! Thanks to contributors. Good examples of an attenuator and tide power.

Edited May 9, 2011 by Airbrush

[Brainteaserfan]

This is copied from a post of mine on a different topic. This is how I'd make a generator for waves. I think I prefer the tide idea though.

Something like a funnel floating like a floating dock, halfway submerged though, with a fan/screw, in the skinny part. The big part would have to be able to adjust it's size so that if there were big waves, the funnel would be smaller so that less of the wave was harnessed and vice versa. Also, that would need to be placed where the bottom of the body of water was rising so that the waves would all be moving in one direction.