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This Device Could Provide a Third of America's Power
- wapapaloobop 10y ago...could provide a third of America's present power requirements.
- Retric 10y agoU.S. energy demand has actually fairly steady. It was slightly lower in 2014 vs 2008. http://www.indexmundi.com/g/g.aspx?c=us&v=81 http://www.indexmundi.com/g/g.aspx?c=us&v=81 A wide range of things have been getting more energy efficient TV, lighting, computers, heating cooling, insulation, etc.
- wapapaloobop 10y agoIt's good things are getting efficient up to a point however those kind of savings are unsustainable and in the longterm our energy use will continue to grow exponentially, including for environmental management. Thus it doesn't make sense to research power sources that aren't potentially 100s of times greater than our current usage.
- lolc 10y ago"For my future life of luxury I will have to find a lot of gold so I'm not gonna plant potatoes today." Boring, pointless potatoes.
- wapapaloobop 10y agoThat's a false analogy since farming potatoes is an existing technology.
- lolc 10y agoYou advocated forgoing research in a proven field for research in speculative fields. The analogy is about favoring prospecting over farming. In farming you can calculate an expected yield, in prospecting you don't know what you are going to find.
- gcr 10y agoDoes this account for things beyond electricity such as fossil fuels? For example, the shift from using gasoline cars to electric cars would reduce the amount of electricity we use, but would increase the amount of gas. This could be a net good, if we assume that the electricity was produced in a cleaner way.
- kuzmin 10y agoI think you mean increase electricity and reduce gas?
- takno 10y agoAre they saying it could provide a third of America's power (I'm guessing current electricity consumption) from America's coastal waters, or from the whole of the world's oceans?
- programmer_dude 10y agoMagnetostriction is news now? See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetostriction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetostriction
- superkuh 10y agoThey're doing it without high price rare earth magnets.
- nxzero 10y ago>> "That's 352,670,000,000,000,000,000 gallons just sloshing around out there." ^^ Stopped reading after this sentence.
- EGreg 10y ago>> Stopped reading Stopped caring after seeing that
- nxzero 10y agoYour right, trying to exploit in an entire ecosystem for the benefit of a single species is a great idea.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- golergka 10y agoThat's literally what every species on the planet is trying to do, as well as they can.
- nxzero 10y agoAll species self-regulate. If you feel you're able to provide notable research countering this, please do; happy to admit I'm wrong. https://www.google.com/search?q=species+self-regulation https://www.google.com/search?q=species+self-regulation
- eveningcoffee 10y agoAll species self-regulate. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Matthew_Island#Mammals https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Matthew_Island#Mammals Also really fun comic about this: http://www.stuartmcmillen.com/comics_en/st-matthew-island/ http://www.stuartmcmillen.com/comics_en/st-matthew-island/ happy to admit I'm wrong. There you go. Now before you start blaming developed nations about their energy usage, it is good to review the data persented here: http://visualizingeconomics.com/blog/2007/12/09/comparing-population-growth-china-india-africa-latin-america-western-europe-united-states http://visualizingeconomics.com/blog/2007/12/09/comparing-po...
- nphang 10y ago"When it comes to low cost renewable energy, one of the great success stories has been wind power" -- what a jokester. Wind turbines are ridiculously primitive at this stage in terms of efficiency (the operating window is actually fairly small, you have to turn them off in high winds or they melt their gears and shit) and cost effectiveness (there is no entry level turbine that provides any reasonable amount of energy). Basically they're only prevalent where you get tax breaks for installing them for a reason. So this is another piezoelectric project I guess. Some european country made a piezoelectric section of road that purportedly powers a whole village during rush hour. Of course that road, build from a _very rare and expensive material_ is just some european country's science fair project. Powering a village of whatever is literally nothing except bragging rights. Reflective solar death rays are the only renewable capable of producing reasonable amounts of energy at this point to even consider putting it into production. All these "renewables" are basically just distractions funded by the oil cartels. We have an energy source that's cheaper than coal, more reliable, _safer_ for humans and better for the environment than fossils. It's called nuclear, and it's killed less people than hydroelectric -- possibly less than wind and solar, but I don't know that. For the petro-dollar to reign king, people need to be tricked into thinking that anything cheaper than oil is dangerous, and anything safer than oil is expensive (inefficient). Ironically the only companies breaking this perception, newer low cost electric vehicles, are well known to actually ravage the environment way harder than a petro-car.
- ajmurmann 10y agoIf we were to do this on a large scale, how would it impact the waves we are seeing? Might that impact coastal wildlife? Might it even impact currents and weather patterns?
- maxerickson 10y agoIt would, but you are really asking if the impact would be noticeable. A single hurricane can be releasing ~1/2 global electric generation, which at least suggests that installing a bunch and observing the effects will be a safe enough strategy.
- nxzero 10y agoSome of the impacts are covered here: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wave_power§ion=15#Challenges https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wave_power§io... If done on the scale suggested in the article, it would be catastrophic; article infers that the whole ocean should be used as a source of engery, which is madness.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- Osiris30 10y agoThe UK's Witt Energy device can be used in marine and wave power applications - and can harness kinetic motion in all six degrees - using pendulums. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11514839 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11514839
- electic 10y agoThose devices are impressive and they probably work, but as the video correctly stated, the maintenance of those devices are the problem and makes them cost prohibitive. Typically, devices with moving parts have a shorter shelf-life, because of the hostile ocean environment.
- alexthornton 10y agoDavid MacKay's "Sustainable Energy - without the hot air" [1] does a good job of putting energy sources like this in perspective. Wave energy is indeed challenged by issues with mechanical parts; however, the reality is that there isn't much wave energy their to begin with. As MacKay puts it, "sun makes wind and wind makes waves" [2]. Waves are just diluted sunshine. Sandia National Labs does a good job of putting this into perspective, assessing solar electricity with a theoretical potential of 89,000 TW and ocean wave with 34 TW [3]. We could try to make the case that, despite the small potential, wave power is convenient to extract. We do this for hydropower, for example. However, where there are waves, there is wind. On cost and reliability, I don't see wave power ever being able to beat out offshore wind. 1. http://www.withouthotair.com/ http://www.withouthotair.com/ 2. http://www.withouthotair.com/c12/page_73.shtml http://www.withouthotair.com/c12/page_73.shtml 3. http://www.sandia.gov/~jytsao/Solar%20FAQs.pdf http://www.sandia.gov/~jytsao/Solar%20FAQs.pdf
- superkuh 10y agoWind generators and some aspects of solar cells use rare earth metals. The big advance of this particular company is not using rare earth magnets.
- Gibbon1 10y agoNot sure that is true, the large generators don't use permanent magnets. Old school generators used a small DC motor with permanent magnets to power the field windings. However I think the generators in large wind turbines use an inverter to proved power to the field windings. (So that they can account for small mismatches between the line frequency and shaft speed)
- CapitalistCartr 10y agoWe don't need super-solutions/magic bullets for electric generation. Tidal could fill in where its best suited, such as Newfoundland. Imagine if we had: 20% Nuclear (been this for decades) 25% Natural Gas (27% now) 23% Wind (4% now) 22% Solar (1/2% now) 5% Tidal (none now) 5% Hydro (6%-7% for decades) and no coal at all. (35%-50% for decades)
- monk_e_boy 10y agoWe kitesurf in a river mouth, the river is tidal. Behind the beach are a couple of pools that are huge, these get filled and emptied by the tide twice a day. The volume of water that slooshes out is amazing. Staggering. We love to kite there cos we convert the energy into speed.
- Abraln 10y agoI am personally excited about tidal as it is almost completely predictable. The wind may die down and clouds may block the sun, but the tide always comes in on schedule.
- OliverJones 10y agoHow do these things stay on station? I live near the Gulf of Maine. When we have an ocean storm, the lobster buoys and sometimes the navigation buoys end up on the beach and have to be put back where they go. Other times they end just lost in the ocean. Sometimes divers have to go find the lobster pots. Pots that can't be pulled are very wasteful. Putting these generator things back might be quite costly. It will certainly create jobs for commercial divers. How do they keep the cables (surface to that big old tire thingy hanging in the water) from getting tangled or broken in storms? That U. Maine wave tank should be able to help them figure it out; its purpose is storm simulation. How do they get their power to a shore-based distribution point?
- iamcreasy 10y agoEvery time I see a good article on sustainable energy I tweet it to Elon Musk.
- af16090 10y agoHere's a more detailed article about the device from The Economist: http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21677612-hitherto-obscure-piece-physics-may-be-secret-ocean-power http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/2167761...
- Animats 10y agoThis is a magnetostrictive generator. It's not "no moving parts", it's flexures instead of rotational joints. Historically, magnetostriction was a weak effect, but some new materials have improved the efficiency.[1] Still, operating at the ocean surface is usually a high-maintenance headache. A no-moving-parts solution would be taking power from an ocean current by using it as the working fluid in a magnetohydrodynamic generator. That's a totally submerged system. The concept has been used in reverse to drive a ship, so this can work in seawater.[2] But it requires superconducting magnets, and all the cryogenics which go with that. If we ever get room temperature superconductors, this might be useful. [1] http://revolution-green.com/magnetic-energy-harvesting-using-magnetostriction/ http://revolution-green.com/magnetic-energy-harvesting-using... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yamato_1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yamato_1