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Gulf of Mexico Gets Wave-Powered Desalination Plant
blair1q writes "The US Army Corps of Engineers has issued the first permit for a wave-powered desalination plant in American territory to a company called Independent Natural Resources. Waves will operate 'Seadog' pumps, which will lift water into the plant and onto a water wheel connected to a generator, which will create electricity to operate a reverse-osmosis desalination system. The permit runs for four years. Let's hope they don't harm the environment, permanently impact drilling operations, or give Rube Goldberg any crazy ideas..."
Can't they just burn the water to power it?
http://inri.us/index.php/SEADOG Looks promising actually.
At least now they won't have to worry about lubricating the wheel.
"Thanks to BP, for the first 3 years of operation, the desalination plant will actually produce Kraft Cajun-Style Salad Dressing."
Anybody want a peanut?
Drink it? Use it for cleaning? Any damn thing you do with water?
Many will notice rivers tend to flow towards oceans.
The increased salinity in the area of the device, perhaps.
The fact that it may ingest fish and other wildlife could be another issue.
Lots of possibilities.
Using wave technology, which varies in cycles, you can store desalinated water at times of peak flow.
A tidal generator can have many forms - some, which look like buoys, are basically upside-down wind turbines that use the flow of water instead of air to move the blades, while others can use permeated cells. Desalination plants have been around since before WW II, naturally, as have tidal generators.
Delivery of energy supply is one of the main problems with desalination - the process uses a lot of energy, so using local sources such as tidal power makes more sense than trying to string extra power to the plant.
Not that you'd want to drink the swampy and/or briny water in many lowland tidal areas ...
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Thanks to the spill this plant is self lubricating.
Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
The water would be for drinking, the salt and other minerals, probably sold.
The salt would most likely be discarded. Reverse-Osmosis doesn't produce nice crystals of salt that you can store away and sell. It produces SALTIER water, and salt-less water.
AccountKiller
"Rather than sell electricity or water, though, operators will be taking data to measure impact on sea life, the generator's performance, and the cost of operation, said Douglas Sandberg, the vice president of the privately funded company."
So it's just a demo. Only generates 60KW. Not clear if that's average or max power; probably max. On days with low surf, not much will happen.
They've been hyping this since 2004. There are better wave powered generation devices, and even the best ones are commercial flops.
why there an "oil" tag on this one?
sure, they probably can't operate it while there's the oil issue in the gulf....though, I wonder if their reverse-osmosis filtration systems can filter out oil.....or the seadog pump that use a "wheel" (also wonder if those "wheels" are like a centrifuge)
even if it can't...send Kevin Costner in (rolls sarcastic eyes here), he'll make it work some how.
technically, that's what a fuel cell is.
You could store the tidal energy by cracking the water H20 into H2 and O2 and then use it in a fuel cell.
But each conversion process means you lose part of the energy.
And since they need non-brackish drinking water, making it directly is more efficient.
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Reverse Osmosis generates water that is super-saline (not dry salt). Under RCRA, highly concentrated salt-water (like the type that can be produced by mass amounts of reverse-osmosis) is legally classified as a kind of hazardous waste, and for good reason.
Could you not evaporate it into sea salt that you sell?
Or release it over a large area and mix it well?
I am thinking some sort of pipe that has many small holes and leaks over a large area. This would mean the super-saline water would be mixed with the sea water very fast.
Here they are talking about something small you can put into place remote from the grid and you are suggesting a technology that is best at very large scales?
There is also no such thing as "traditional desalination" yet but a nice try at emotional manipulation there.
Do you write this for every new technology and just change two or three words? It just doesn't quite fit in this situation but looks very familiar.
how many people have to wave at it in order for it to work?
At least now they won't have to worry about lubricating the wheel.
Yeah, and the tap-water has nice "money" flavor.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
Any reverse osmosis unit that I have ever seen requires fairly clean sea water to start the process. For example yachts need to be in open water before allowing these units to be started up. Now how will this work with BPs tons and tons of crude oil mixed into the Gulf. One good gulp of oil will foul this new idea completely.