Ocean electricity generation draws nearer

I've been wondering for some time why we've heard so little about generating electricity from tidal and wave motion. So-called 'wind farms' are all very well, but they're notoriously unpredictable as reliable generators of electricity (when the wind dies down, so does your electricity supply), and they kill tens of thousands of birds each year, which fly into their huge rotors. They're not a satisfactory solution. Wave motion, on the other hand, and the rise and fall of the tides, is a constant, and doesn't die down with the wind.

Now a report from England says that a new type of electricity generator, to be moored offshore in deep water, is nearing full-scale testing.

It looks and moves like a like a giant snake, but according to scientists this weird device could be generating energy off Britain's coast within five years.

Each 'anaconda', which could be more than 200 yards long and made almost entirely of a rubber tube, may be capable of producing 1MW (megawatt) of power.

The plan is to have 'shoals' or 'schools' of the devices around the coast, where they would be harnessed to 'swim' just below the surface.

Groups of 50 anacondas could each generate enough electricity to power 50,000 homes at an 'excitingly low' cost, the developers Checkmate Group said.

A ten-yard version of the anaconda is currently in the final stage of 'proof of concept' testing at a 300-yard wave test tank run by QinetiQ in Gosport, Hampshire.

Checkmate hopes to be testing full-scale devices in the ocean within three years, with the first anacondas in commercial production and deployed off the coast by 2014.

. . .

Prof Rainey, a chief engineer with engineering design consultants Atkins, said: 'It's a completely new kind of wave power machine.'

And he said: 'The beauty of wave energy is its consistency. However, the problem holding back wave energy machines is they tend to deteriorate over time in the harsh marine environment.

'Anaconda is non-mechanical: it is mainly rubber, a natural material with a natural resilience and so it has very few moving parts to maintain.'

He added that the design was 'tremendously survivable'.

'If the worst comes to the worst it'll only be washed up on the beach, and you can patch it up and put it back out there,' he said.

There's more at the link.

Here's a video of the proposed system in operation.

I find it all very interesting. If enough of these can be moored in out-of-the-way places off the coast, a large proportion of our energy needs might be satisfied without using fuel of any kind. That can only be good for the environment.

Of course, they'll have to be careful to site these things clear of the habitat of the electric eel. Those things carry a charge of their own, and if one of them should develop amorous intentions towards an 'anaconda', the results might be literally shocking!



Peter