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Wave Power Fails To Live Up To Promise
the_newsbeagle writes: One of the leading companies developing wave power devices, Ocean Power Technologies, has dramatically scaled down its ambitions. The company had planned to install the world's first commercial-scale wave farms off the coast of Australia and Oregon, but has now announced that it's ending those projects. Instead it will focus on developing next-gen devices. Apparently the economics of wave power just don't make sense yet.
Ha! Ha!
If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
"A spokesperson for Ocean Power Technologies announced, that after a number of years of testing and development efforts, that Wave farms are a wash."
*ducks* *runs*
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
Primary examples would be installed on sea installations, like say oil drilling platforms. Why ship in fuel to an oil drilling platform, when you can simply install a wavepower generator to provide the power. Then, once you find oil, you don't have to get rid of the wave power generator. Keep it and use wave power to get the oil, rather than burning oil just to get more oil.
Also, I could easily see a small scale wave power generator designed for boats, particularly house boats.
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We only need even more market manipulation. Eliminate CO2 emissions completely, tax the hell out of nuclear, drive up consumer costs to the breaking point, and lots of schemes become viable. When the average family is forced to cut food to pay energy costs, demand will soar for alternatives. Come to think of it, lots of folks could use a little less food, Like my neighbor.
Some renewable energy techs are less competitive than others. Hydroelectric has been the leader. Then comes wind. then solar. geothermal might fill a few niches. Wave, OTEC, and tidal don't work for widescale power.
Take you expected costs, double it, then throw the piece of paper way because it's still useless.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Part of the problem might be that they can't sell the power. The wind farms we currently have are already producing more power than the bonneville power administration is willing to purchase - even though they are under contract to do so.
Moving parts = bad idea.
Moving parts in salt water?
Repairs under water?!?!
It's as simple as that.
I seem to recall a news story from a few years ago where they'd tried to put wave power in the Bay of Fundy, where the highest tides in the world are.
Basically, the tides destroyed the machinery in three weeks or so.
So, yes, there's plenty of mechanical energy to harvest. The problem is that it might also be stronger than the stuff you've built.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
IMO, wave power is just too random. Tidal power is predictable, and can be harnessed both on the rise and the fall of the tides. Just think about havesting the flow of the Bay of Fundy!
It's a shame that the idea is not feasible. There is an awesome amount of energy that could be tapped from the ocean.
Had they been successful, they would have slingshotted the moon further away from us. Oh, the calamity!
HSJ$$*&#^!#+++ATH0
NO CARRIER
BUILDING IN OCEANS EXPENSIVE
But seriously, this has always been the case. It costs you ten to a thousand times the amount to build something in the sea than it does on land (depending on depth) and then there's the human cost of maintaining it.
I'm certainly not saying it's impossible or undesirable, it just hasn't reached the point where technology and our abilities make it worth doing yet. And this isn't a chicken vs egg issue. Even without building tidal turbine systems, people are still doing underwater engineering. Progress is still being made.
Apparently the economics of ___________ just don't make sense yet.
As discussed in this article, turbines are not required to harvest ocean energy. Some approaches can scale from small to large installations.
There's a pilot tidal power project in Northern Maine, which is also in the Bay of Fundy.
http://www.orpc.co/content.aspx?p=h3jCHHn6gcg%3D
Surfers the world over are happy that the threat of power plants hogging their tasty waves isn't quite as gnarly now.
What promise? No-one promised me anything.
Technology in it's infancy fails to wipe the floor with technologies that have had literally $Trillions of investment. Not really surprising.
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...how much did they take us for?
Sorry folks, we peed away all your cash and government incentives and it is too expensive to actually produce anything ....so please invest more so that we can do more R&D
Why aren't those low prices passed on to consumers? The wholesale cost of electricity has dropped 50%, but our rates have not....
I recall reading 40 years ago how someone from the early 1900's looked at recovery power from wave/tide action. The results of the analysis showed that maintanence cost from the harsh environment (including fouling by organisms) made it un-economical. Seems that nothing has changed really.
If the economics of oil is in the way, then stop subsidizing oil production with tax breaks and two-trillion dollar wars of oil field conquest. Tax the shit out of them. Alt energy has to make a profit in the shadow of trillions of dollars propping up the oil infrastructure - taxpayer funded. They work in a "free" market while oil companies have marines guarding their wells.
"Apparently the economics of wave power just don't make sense yet." Shocker... the economics of renewable energy in general makes little economic sense.
Wave Power Fails to live up to Promise
The problem is more with the promise than with the technology. Only those who bought into the hype are disappointed....and the beat goes on.
They have rapidly turned Australia from leaders in renewable energy to followers.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
The first ones were of the coast of Portugal, but in the American view of the world, Portugal doesn't exist.
http://www.pelamiswave.com/
All market are bound and manipulated by local laws and interest. What you have are capitalistic market which have an orientation, are the market more geared toward protection of the entrenched, more geared toward allowing new comer etc.... But free market is as much an illusion as true communism : a goal that nobody practice.
All one has to do is check out a sacrificial anode that has been attached to a boat motor for a few years in salt water to get an idea of how damaging saltwater can be to things.
Parents bought a salt water speed boat (we used it in a freshwater lake). It has a sacrificial anode (I had to look up what it was actually called) attached to the shaft of the prop. In the most basic sense it attracts the corrosion from the saltwater sacrificing itself in favor of preserving those more important bits around it.
Ours was a rectangular bar that looked like someone had subjected it to acid that had eaten a large chunk of it away.
Another example that is non-metallic, all those structures will require things like concrete moorings and the like. There is a reason why you are not supposed to throw salt on your concrete steps in the winter. Now subject it non-stop and engulfed, and in addition fill it with metallic bits for re-bar...
Not to mention the construction costs where just staying level, and not moving is difficult or your workforce has to wear flippers and oxy tanks...
There are a few operating tidal power plants in the world (three I think). One of them is in Nova Scotia. It has been there since the 70's. It works, however it is Tidal power, which is different than Wave power. The proven Tidal power uses Barrage Dams, which basically at high tide stores the water, and at low tide generates power by releasing it through turbines.
However, it was expensive to build, took longer, cost more (which isn't unheard of for any energy project, but I got the impression that it was a lot more), none of them produce all that much power either in comparison to other sources. In addition, just like Hydro power (which this essentially is but with tides), you are limited to building it in only certain areas where A) There are BIG tides, and B) In the mouth of a natural estuary etc... both of which are physically limited.
There are of course experimental underwater turbines (which is probably what that was), where you simply drop it in the water, and the tidal current does the work. However it's inherent flaw is that the entire structure is underwater. Which unless it it totally maintenance free (which if you are talking about submerged metallic machinery with moving parts in saltwater, never will be), is going to be pretty unfeasible no mater what you do for any period of time.