Scotland Building Wave Power Farms

eldavojohn writes "Scottish engineers are taking advantage of the huge ocean coast that Scotland enjoys by building a 'wave farm' to harvest electricity from the ocean's powerful waves. These big red tubes have been named the Pelamis System after a sea snake. Max Carcas, the business developer for the firm, says it is 'a bit like a ship at anchor or a flag on a flagpole, it self orientates into the waves ... Waves then travel down the length of the machine and in doing so each of the sections, each of these train carriages, moves up and down and side to side.' These snake-like movements push hydraulic fluid through generators to produce electricity."

Comments

Background Information

[eldavojohn]

Back in 2005, Slashdot covered this but the company has made great strides since then (flash animation of the Pelamis System).

If you think this idea is new, it is not. The patents for this technology go all the way back to the 1970s.[1] [2]

As was noted in the original discussion on this topic,

The European Union requires 22 percent of electricity consumption to come from renewable energy sources -- such as solar, wind and wave -- by 2010.

Which explains why you'll see this more and more in the news. Some of the countries in Europe have energy generation from wind & waves up to 10% or 15% but 2010 is getting closer and closer.

Everyone recognizes that it's not smart to put all your eggs in one basket and right now a lot of countries are pretty dependent on oil. With a possible energy crisis or global warming problem, wave power looks like it will be one of the many solutions that each country will develop to mitigate their problems.

Re:Background Information

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

The patents for this technology go all the way back to the 1970s.[1] [2]

Hence the fact that it's only emerging now.

They're not the only ones...

[bluekanoodle]

Scientists have been doing research on this off the coast of Oregon as well.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0915/p02s02-usgn.htm l

Scotland != Portugal

[kindbud]

"Scottish engineers are taking advantage of the huge ocean coast that Scotland enjoys by building a 'wave farm'....

In Portugal. From TFA:

Scottish engineers will soon deploy an offshore "wave farm" in Portugal.

They have also signed a deal to build an even larger farm in Scottish waters.

Construction of the wave farm in Portugal has been underway for the past year in a busy shipyard in the Portuguese coastal town of Peniche.

I wonder how it compares?

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Ocean Power is currently installing their Utility-sized bouys off the Oregon Coast, with the first 14 being a 2MW power plant for the city of Reedsport (providing about a quarter of the needed electricity for that resort community). The BBC article doesn't say what the expected output of the Scottish plant, using different technology, would be. Anybody know how the power output compares?

Obligatory Quote from a Scottish Engineer

[thewiz]

"We canna create any more power, Captain! They're wiggling as fast as they can!"

Additional report from PRI

[LotsOfPhil]

Public Radio International had a 5 minute piece on this a few weeks ago. You can listen here if you can play wma.

Environmental Impact: Scotland the Wave

[aapold]

Is no one concerned about the potential impact this will have, by providing a drag on the waves that would else naturally strike the coast, thus potentially reducing the habitat for species adatped to the wave-heavy environment of Scotland's coast? What about the mollusks and other marine invertebrates who can only spread and prosper via wave transort...

Its just like those people who advocate wind power and never consider the impact of slowing down the world's winds, thus reducing the natural spread of wind-bourne seeds and so on...

This sounds strangely familiar...

[Lurker2288]

So, this whole system is just a series of tubes?

Re:Wave systems can be hidden, unlike wind

[h2_plus_O]

Hidden from view is not necessarily a good thing, it is part of what has allowed us all to overconsume energy.

I partly agree, but came to a different conclusion.
What has allowed us all to overconsume energy is that we are insulated from the real costs and impacts of doing so. We don't care about what blows out of the smokestack if it (mostly) goes elsewhere- for us, those costs are externalized (until we pay our health insurance premiums). We buy gasoline (in the US) that is taxpayer-subsidized, which insulates us from feeling the price pain that would otherwise motivate us to either conserve or switch to an energy source that mitigates these costs.

What makes excessive consumption bad is not that it is excessive; it is that there's a consequence of doing so that is undesirable. Get rid of the undesirable consequences and where's the sin? I don't think there's a value in eyesores; they a) don't really make us conserve, and b) are themselves one of the undesirable consequences we'd all rather be without. In essence, they're a solution that comes with a different set of problems, just like the ones we're trying to solve today.

Cost makes us conserve- pretty much every other factor is secondary. Concern about the environment makes us conserve, when cost doesn't override that concern. We'll tolerate mercury in our food so we can have cheap coal-fired electricity, and government deficits so we can subsidize gas prices. We'll for SURE tolerate eyesores, no sweat. (especially since they'll end up being placed in less-desirable locations- again, a function of cost externalization). In other words, there's virtually zero redeeming value in having your power come from an eyesore, simply because that won't incentivize the sort of low-to-no-negative-impact living you seem to really be interested in.