Slashdot Mirror
Alternative Energy: Power Via Coastal Wave Motion.
lavalamp writes "Scottish company Ocean Power Delivery has developed a sectional-torpedo-looking-thing as a means to transform the raw fury of the sea into electricity! I'm curious to see what happens when another drunk Exxon captain plows into a field of these things. They just secured a 8.6m (usd) in funding to continue research and build a large scale prototype." The company has won a contract to produce a 750kw "plant" off of the scottish coast and has an mou to produce a 2Mw project off of the coast of Vancouver Island in Canada. While this is far from being free energy, it is a pretty interesting way of deriving power from the tides. A side benefit is that surfers will finally be able to rail like their boarding cousins.
Don't forget this older slashdot article that deals with the dangers of tidal power, namely that since it's the moon's gravitational pull that powers the tides, by harnessing them for power, we'll slow the moon down in its orbit, causing it to fall and crash into the earth. Probably onto some kind of target laid out by Taco Bell as a free taco promotion.
This tagline is umop apisdn.
What a smashing development.
They sure seem energetic about this idea.
Within months the company will be all washed up.
"I only speak the truth"
Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
In a related story, researchers in belgium are working on a prototype system designed to capture usefull levels of electric power from night-club dance floors.
"Many people haven't personally seen the levels of activity that frequently are exerted in the techno-music scene. It's really quite suprisingly frenetic" says one researcher.
And because all night dance clubs are so popular in Euroland, there is a not insignificant untapped potential for power generation. The scientists are especially exited to be developing a prototype system to be deployed in Ibiza, Spain.
"What's especially fitting about this locale, is that a majority of the partiers [or, as we like to call them, acoustically stimulable periodic mass distributors] are in fact foreign tourists; which truly is free energy. They even pay to stay here, and pay for the food they are so efficiently converting into mechanical energy!
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the pen is mightier than the sword, the sword is mightier than the court, the court is mightier than the pen.
Well, if you take energy out of a system (like the ocean) you cool it down, right? So maybe if we get enough of these suckers, we can refreeze all those icebergs that are breaking off down in Antarctica...
Drunken Exxon Captain. Extra points for dolphins slimed in the event of an oil spill, or automatic win for crashing into Cowboyneal if mating with a dolphin, because the world is just not ready for that kind of offspring.
I prefer to have my power generated by Newton rather than Archemedies.
To this end, I have designed a generator which derives all its power from falling apples.
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It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.