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.

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.

Obligatory Quote from a Scottish Engineer

[thewiz]

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

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...