Slashdot Mirror
New Wave Power Research Rising Off Oregon Coast
necro81 writes "A prototype buoy has been launched off the Oregon coast to try generating electrical power from the ever-present waves. The OSU device works like a giant shake-up flashlight. It is one of several competing designs to take advantage of a potential clean energy goldmine. It will be years before substantial power is contributed to the grid, but several companies have received permits to develop test platforms. The New York Times has an article that surveys the current outlook for wave energy, which it compares to wind energy's prospects back in the 1980s. Concerns about impacts to wildlife and fishing remain to be answered."
Experts predict that current will flow from the anode to the cathode terminal in the near future.
The actual harnessing of the waves probably won't affect much. It would be much worse to create a man-made harbor instead -- all you're doing is breaking down the waves before they break on the beach. The only negative affects would come with giant metal buckets floating in the water with long rods going down to the bottom... some fish might bump their heads...
When wave energy hits a breakwater the energy is dispersed and reflected back into the medium (the ocean). If it hits a a generator it is absorbed and converted into electrical energy. Something like this is taking energy out of a closed system which will have effects. How much? depends on how much energy you take out.
Olaf Stapledon's "Last and First Men" is a mind-boggling future history. Very dated and politically/ideologically goofy in its early parts, then increasingly way-out as humanity nearly dies out, evolves, nearly dies out again, moves to a terraformed Venus . . . and so on, until the 17th and final human species dies out on Neptune 2 billions years from now.
While racing through the history of the cat-like "Third Men," Stapledon notes that one civilization uses tidal power to such an extent that the orbit of the moon is slightly altered!
Someone needs to create something along the lines of the spam solutions template, but for new technologies (like wave power or wind farms).
I'll start:
(things in bold can be easily replaced)
Your solution advocates a
(*) technical ( ) legislative (*) market-based ( ) vigilante
approach to solving a looming energy problem. Your idea will not work. Here is why it won't work. (One or more of the following may apply to your particular idea, and it may have other flaws which used to vary from state to state or country to country before a bad federal or international law was passed.)
(*) It will be fought by entrenched fishing interests
(*) It will be fought by entrenched energy corporations
(*) It will be fought by ______________
(*) It will succumb to NIMBY Syndrome
(*) Requires immediate total cooperation from everybody at once
( ) Technology doesn't work that way
(*) NIMBY Syndrome will prevent mass deployment
Specifically, your plan fails to account for:
(*) Idiots with boats
( ) International reluctance to engage in sweeping change
(*) Technically illiterate politicians
(*) Extreme stupidity on the part of people who vote
( ) A lack of support from famous Musicians and Actors
(*) Conflicting environmental interests
and the following philosophical objections may also apply:
( ) The money could be better spent curing cancer
( ) Ideas similar to yours are easy to come up with, yet none have ever
been shown practical
(*) Feel-good measures do nothing to solve the problem
(*) Your solution is expensive
(*) Your solution may be politically infeasible
( ) The money could be better spent implementing [other] solution
( ) It makes life harder, not easier
Furthermore, this is what I think about you:
(*) Sorry dude, but I don't think it would work.
( ) This is a stupid idea, and you're a stupid person for suggesting it.
( ) Nice try, assh0le! I'm going to find out where you live and burn your house down!
You get the idea. Please improve it.
Not that I'm shitting on wave power, but NIMBY, questions about environmental impact and the fishing & energy industries could seriously crimp any offshore plans.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
New Wave Power is gonna fucking kick ass. Why hasn't anyone thought of this sooner?
It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
It always surprised me that wave and tidal energy weren't harnessed more. Wave energy is really just wind energy thrown into a thick medium which should allow us to extract it in all its concentrated goodness. (And wind, in turn, is caused by solar heating.)
But what always seemed more dramatic to me, however, are the tides. Especially living in an area with the highest tides in the world, seeing phenomenal amounts of water come in and out with a 6 foot difference, twice a day, always struck me as having a lot more potential (ha ha) than other sources of renewable energy. Effectively harnessing the gravitation pull of our moon through the tides, always seemed to me to be a solution that was too good to be true. There are days when the sea is calm and the wing generators are slower due to lack of wind; coal and oil prices vary wildly. But nothing stops the tides, day or night; the energy available and its cost is 100% predictable, which is a rarity among energy sources.
In Nova Scotia, we have tidal power plant which generates power from the tides. However, it seems to be in a constant state of research, politics, grants, and such, and is fairly small. (Even twenty years ago, it was in this state; instead of referring to it by its name, the "Fundy Tidal Project," people used to refer to it as the "Tidy Fundal Project.") The amount of energy that could be captured from even a small part of the Bay of Fundy is staggering. Yes, it would be quite an engineering feat, but not really anything beyond other megaprojects. It's sad we haven't progressed further in harnessing this.
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
Let me be the first to object to using tidal energy as a "renewable" resource. Don't people know that it will cause the moon to fly away from the Earth at ever increasing speeds? It's not like the energy is free, you know. Call me a lunatic if you'd like, but I refuse to destroy our moon just to let people run their massive new television sets.
This is a tidal system being changed, so we have to look at the other things effected by the tidal system, like, the Moon. This will certainly slow down the Moon's orbit around the Earth. Now, what will THAT change? First to my mind is: women's menstruation cycles. It will make it take longer between periods, which is a good thing for sure, but on the other hand, it may also lengthen how long she's experiencing it, which is really, really bad. Not sure whether this falls in the pro or con category.
Other things: werewolves. Obviously, same deal as menstruation - less frequent, possibly for longer periods (so to speak). I'd invest in the silver industry, you could probably make a tidy profit on this! I won't make the joke about women being related to werewolves (cuz, you know, they get 'bitchy' at that time), because that would just be obvious and tacky, and this IS Slashdot.
I'm pretty sure vampires are not effected by the Moon, so that's good, though this will not help prevent Dick Cheney attacks, so that's actually disappointing.
As with other clean power production technologies, the animal rights activists will find a way to claim it hurts migratory birds, and I'm sure to some extent that will be true, though they'll likely be harmed a lot less by this than by the pollution produced by conventional power production.
With fewer waves hitting the shoes, less sediment will be drawn into the ocean, so they'll be a bit more sparkly-clean looking, which is good, but there's probably some stuff in there that some ocean creature feeds on, so they'll starve, so that'll be bad.
Most likely a net positive because of the reduced pollution thing, I'm guessing.
Most of the wave energy is reflected back into the ocean
Most?
Not hardly. If that were the case, the ocean would be a lot rougher than it is. On a sandy or rocky shore, most of the wave's energy grinds the bits of the beach together, creating the sand, and slightly warming the water (which is offset by evaporation). The only places where you get most of the wave returned to the ocean is where it hits sheer, rocky cliffs.
The ignorance and lack of common sense on Slashdot never ceases to fucking amaze.
You amaze yourself?
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Really I don't think the environmentalists (a) believe what they say, and (b) actually want to solve anything.
There are environmentalists, and there are misanthropes who pretend to be environmentalists. The former are enthusiastic about alternative energy sources. The latter want us all to just freeze in the dark.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."