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Underwater Ocean Currents Used to Power Bermuda
Saevio writes to tell us The Royal Gazette is reporting that Bermuda is planning to sink a power generator off the coast to take advantage of ocean currents. The company providing the service, Belco predicts that they will be able to provide approximately 10 percent of the island's energy needs. From the article: "The 150ft long deep sea generator with a four-blade turbine inside would cut Belco's dependency on oil and also benefit the environment by cutting future fuel emissions, he added, stating that the company needed to increase its generating capacity before 2010. Mr. Madeiros, who hailed the technology 'mind-boggling', said: 'This is cutting edge technology, not used anywhere else. One can't help but get excited by this technology.'"
Belco's original press release.
I mean, the energy that otherwise would keep pushing warm gulf stream water towards Europe, that's going to be harnassed by Bermuda...
Does this not risk at slightly lowering the temperature of Europe?
I mean you never know the full consequences... I know, we have global warming to offset that, but still... (and these diverted warmer waters will linger in the southern atlantic, so mean global temperature is still the same...)
"Waste not one watt!" - CZ
Just how many current-surfing turtles and fish can we expect to be missing from Finding Nemo 2 because they get swept into the four turbines?
Power generator mysteriously vanised in the Bermuda sea!
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
I prefer to say "current" technology.
I suppose this begs the question if they are going to be alternating currents or just using a direct one.
"Waste not one watt!" - CZ
Has there been any study on the impact this causes to the ocean currents? Could too many of these cause the current that keeps Europe temperate to stop? I doubt one plant will have that much effect, but I worry about the people who think that just because there are no emissions, there is no effect on the environment. That energy must be taken out of something.
Any fish that pass thru the turbines get sucked thru a tube to a nearby canning plant. It's estimated it will provide 50% of the food needed by the island. Not that I expect anyone on the island to eat it. No. It will be sold to 3rd world countries under the brand name Skimpy!.
J. Montgomery Burns
in the gulf stream..
I can see it now, Finding Nemo 2.
Nemo swins through the four blade turbine of Bermuda's deep sea generator and Albert Brooks and Ellen Degeneres have to find Nemo's pieces.
What will be the impact of this on the performance of the triangle? I wouldn't want to see halves of ships dissapparing all of a sudden, because there isn't enough power...
This is a sig. It is appended to the end of comments I post.
For crying out loud, why is it every time there's a story about wind power, or ocean thermal power, or any other non-polluting technology, we always get somebody with NO concept of SCALE popping up with this same asinine question?
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
From TFA:Asked about the potential impact on Bermuda's unique reefs, she said the efficient generator would have a "very low" environmental impact and said the noise produced by the generator would be "very, very quiet" and would not impact sea creatures. She said the unit would be sunk past the first layer of marine life, and fish below that level would be able to safely swim through it. An electric cable would link the substation to the generator under the sand.
I guess this means that the generator blades spin slowly enough that the fish just swim around the blades? My first thoughts before RTFA were concerns for the reef's health. I would hope that they would design it such that it would not cause a sort of in-the-ocean-current observer effect.
I'd like to see the opining of those with some physics or ocean dynamics experience.
It sounds like a great idea... I wish we had lots more three finkers out there trying to make power in new ways.
A Passionate Independent Musician
I wonder how fast it spins....sushi anyone?
Seriously, I'd like to see their solution for protecting marine life from it. Obviously the fan is cowled, but they don't mention any sort of grating to keep the fish out, I'm sure they did something... Also, does it work off of tidal currents? Or some other deeper current?
Perhaps "Underwater currents TO BE used..." would make a better headline. It's four years before they deploy it. Save the past tense headlines for when I can ask questions like "Does it work?" and "Are there any unintended side effects?" and "Would it scale?"
But what will they do when they've used up all the ocean's energy and the water doesn't move anymore?!?
This guy's the limit!
Come on, mods. Get your shit together, will you?
Sid Meier was very forward looking. Tidal generators anyone?
Ok, maybe not the same as tidal generators but pretty close and, presumably, a bit more consistent.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
The use of tidal currents will result in a gravatational drag on the moon. Over a long enough time period, the moon will begin to spiral closer and closer to the earth, finally crashing into the planet.
That way they'd furnish all their power needs.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Nothing to see here. Move along.
The additional drag on the tidal flow will result in additional slowing of the Earth's rotation.
Eventually the Earth will stop rotating. If you thought global warming was an issue now.... On the plus side, half the Earth won't have to worry about global warming at all. And all those older NTP servers, that didn't handle the last leap second well at all, will positively melt down as the leap seconds become continuous.
But before that happens the tidal slowing will eventually drag the Moon out of orbit. I'd sure hate to be in the Mc/BK/Taco Bell/KFC that lands on.
So we must act now to ban tidal generators that rob the Earth of its precious angular momentum.
Because people are dumb.
I guess so.
One turbine in the ocean is, literally, a fart in a hurricane.
For crying out loud, why is it every time there's a story about wind power, or ocean thermal power, or any other non-polluting technology, we always get somebody with NO concept of the MEANING of the word "literally" popping up with this same comment?
...what powers Bermuda now?
Keep in mind that the current flows out of the gulf and around the tip of Florida. Right at that point is probably some of the strongest currents. If Florida was smart, they would sink a few of these off the keys. But it will probably take a change in the current Florida admin. before that will be allowed.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
As a matter of fact, yachts these days fairly often have immersed generators. As the yacht gets hauled along by wind power, the generator trails and spins in the water.
They generate quite impressive amounts of electricity at the cost of a knot or two in speed.
Mind you, the water speed of those trailing generators is considerably higher, quite often, than the gulf stream, but it's quite enough for some impressive juice.
The issue is not hurting fish! Velocity has to be relative to something. From the fish's perspective, the turbine's velocity is relative to the ocean's water. A 150 foot long turbine will spin close to the speed of the ocean water. It will have less velocity vs. ocean water than will a coral reef!
The issue is not stopping the currents! An island in this location would scarcely be noticed, and the turbine will do MUCH less than an island to stop the ocean's flow!
At least it's far enough down to not get destroyed by the first tropical storm. OTOH, anything poking near the surface will get smashed regularly.
The issue is...one turbine generates 10% of the power for an island...and then it gets rusty. He he he....maintenance is a b!tch, then she gets PMS. Imagine loosing 10% of your generation capacity instantly.
Most waves only travel along the surface...I wonder what a good, strong underwater (tsunami-type) wave would do to it?
Andy Out!
US Aircraft carriers have 4 propellors, not 8, on four shafts.
Perhaps you were thinking of the 8 nuclear reactors in the USS Enterprise, CVN-65 (not NCC-1701)?
I don't know much about ocean currents and how they work, but my electricity driven mind makes me think that putting a bunch of turbines in the middle of the ocean current will cause the current to adjust its path to go around them. Right?
Wind power has an energy density of about 30 W/m**2, maybe as high at 100 W/m**2 in windy areas.
Reviewing my own estimate, this number is obviously very sensitive to the average wind velocity, which comes in as the cube. It turns out that average wind speed data for Ontario are available, and my estimate of 5 m/s is on the low side for coastal regions. But even with a more optimistic 8 m/s we are still talking 125 W/m**2 after efficiency considerations, which is only a little higher than my 100 W/m**2 high-end value.
It is also clear that placing wind turbines along the shore will have the lowest environmental impact, because the wind is giving up a lot of energy there in any case.
Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
That said, perhaps we can come up with a more environmentally sound solution - how 'bout using the energy stored in the nuclei of very heavy metals (U, PL)? No? Okay, then let's just burn some nice fossil fuels (coal, petroleum). No again? Maybe we should just dam the course of a river and impound a few million gallons of fresh water? No? Still causing environmental change, you say?
Look just by (breathing, farting, pissing . . . living) we have an effect on the environment and the ecosystem. This looks like a decent way of minimizing that impact while preserving the lifestyle which modern technology has afforded us. It isn't perfect? It's a work in progress at this point - get over it!
We have no ideal what this could do. This is not like a windmill which pull energy from surface winds. This is akin to a 10,000 foot high windmill placed directly in the jet stream. This is also not like tidal or wave generators for the same reasons those devices capture energy that would have been expended by waves crashing on shore and slowly eroding beaches. This device will pull energy from currents that effect weather and climate world wide. If it were just to shift the current a few miles on the east coast it could shift the currents hundreds of miles in the north sea dramiticly changing regional climates. Also note that even the biggest aircraft carriers have no effect on these currents as the ships sit less then 10 meters below the water.
Though that is a common mistake.
preview button next time ;)
Are you polluting our Gulf stream? Please stop swimming in it immediately or we will cut off access to properly made wine.
Conserned European
There is the Seaflow project in the Bristol channel (that's England / Europe), which does pretty much the same thing. There is at least one more of these underwater ocean current devices that I don't remember, and I've recently visited the Enermar system in the Strait of Messina. See this Uni Strathclyde site on more details.
A good Google search term is Ocean current energy, or Marine current energy.
Enough Karma Whoring for this time! It's a pity they won't go with offshore wind energy - the resource at the proposed offshore site was quite good, so the cost would have been quite tolerable, especially against shipped in 70$/brl oil. However, it's going to be interesting to see whether they can make this work. It's interesting that Current to Current can offer a price per kWh without having prospected the currents in detail... and hopefully, the device is very reliable, because getting divers into 75-200 m depth is hardly simple (means, it takes time to fix things).
Hurricane Application Group, Dept of Meteorology Control, Ministry of Proactive Defense