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Giant Snake-Shaped Generators Could Capture Wave Power
Roland Piquepaille writes "UK researchers have developed a prototype of a future giant rubber tube which could catch energy from sea waves. The device, dubbed Anaconda, uses 'long sea waves to excite bulge waves which travel along the wall of a submersed rubber tube. These are then converted into flows of water passing through a turbine to generate electricity.' So far, the experiments have been done with tubes with diameters of 0.25 and 0.5 meters. But if the experiments are successful, future full-scale Anaconda devices would be 200 meters long and 7 meters in diameter, and deployed in water depths of between 40 and 100 meters. An Anaconda would deliver an output power of 1MW (enough to power 2,000 houses). These devices would be deployed in groups of 20 or even more providing cheap electricity without harming our environment."
'long sea waves to excite bulge waves which travel along the wall of a submersed rubber tube. These are then converted into flows of water passing through a turbine to generate electricity.'
and called the anaconda?
i don't know if this scheme will work, but hands down, that is the most sexual innuendo i've heard in an energy generation scheme in a long time
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
motherfucking snake generators on the motherfucking grid!
These devices would be deployed in groups of 20 or even more providing cheap electricity without harming our environment."
I think this underestimates the ability of someone, somewhere being able to find a problem with anything. Hydropower dams wild rivers. Windmills smack birds out of the air. Photovoltaics pave over entire deserts. Probably Anacondas will interfere with the lifecycle of some species or other. One day we'll realize that any energy system is going to have some ill effects and say, "Intercourse the penguins, I need to microwave my popcorn."
Well, if the boat captain finds himself at 40 to 100 meters depth, he has other things to worry about.
But this shows a better image.
Right now, the sky-high price for oil is useful in reminding us that there are limits to our resources. If we do not make a conscientious effort to control population growth, then nature will impose a solution on us. That solution will be poverty and likely starvation. If you doubt what I say, consider the huge amounts of energy that is needed to grow and to transport food.
Right now, I suspect that our population is unsustainably large due to the fact that we still have plentiful supplies of non-renewable sources (e.g., oil and uranium). So, our energy consumption = (1) usuable energy from non-renewable sources + (2) usuable energy from renewable sources. After #1 is depleted by roughly 2100 (?), a global world war for resources will dwarf the calamity of World War II. (By the way, we will deplete our mineral resources like copper and iron ore long before we deplete our non-renewable sources of energy.)
Will humankind wake up to the problem of overpopulation? In the USA, political correctness prevents us from dealing with the problem. The American mantra is that (1) expanding the population is always wonderful and (2) expanding the population by immigration is the best route.
Will you please stop with this "nuclear waste" blather? "Nuclear waste" is just "nuclear fuel that we're too lame to recycle yet".
-- The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. Always.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VamSAbwgJKk
It doesn't sit on the sea floor.
In the long run, the only readily available sources of energy are renewable sources: solar energy and terrestrial energy (e.g., wind and waves).
Almost all of the energy we use comes from the sun, with nuclear and geothermal being (the) exceptions. The main difference is whether we're using the energy as the sun is producing it (wind, wave, solar) or we're using energy that's been stored from previous eons of sunlight (coal, oil). So I agree with what you're saying insofar as we shouldn't be using more energy than the sun is giving us right now, and we should strive to make that come from the current energy output rather than stored output.
Right now, the sky-high price for oil is useful in reminding us that there are limits to our resources.
(By the way, we will deplete our mineral resources like copper and iron ore long before we deplete our non-renewable sources of energy.)
But I'm going to have to disagree with you here. We will never actually run out of copper or iron or oil. As the amount of these resources that is naturally occurring decreases, the price will rise to the point that: (A) It becomes cost-efficent to dig through landfills and recycle previously used resources, and (B) other materials that were previously too expensive for the application will now be cost-effective.
It would take a huge investment in infrastructure to be able to "use up" nuclear material to the state where it is reasonably harmless to life. By comparison, increasing renewable energy generation can be done in a fairly incremental fashion (and can be moved & removed in a fairly incremental fashion as well).
Also, "nuclear waste" doesn't just include the nuclear fuel. It also includes everything which comes in contact with that nuclear fuel & all of ways that it is processed (like the containers used to store/transport the fuel, the reactor walls, the control rod mechanisms, etc). Almost all that material can't be safely used once it has become contaminated, the stuff that it is contaminated with can't be easily extracted for use as fuel, and it is all still hazardous to life.
I'm not saying that nuclear isn't theoretically a great source of energy, but you're seriously downplaying some of its disadvantages.
Oh I dont know, I seem to find the US population extremely dense, I mean they voted for Bush.....