
This Device Could Provide a Third of America's Power - electic
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-04-12/this-device-could-provide-a-third-of-america-s-power
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alexthornton
David MacKay's "Sustainable Energy - without the hot air" [1] does a good job
of putting energy sources like this in perspective. Wave energy is indeed
challenged by issues with mechanical parts; however, the reality is that there
isn't much wave energy their to begin with. As MacKay puts it, "sun makes wind
and wind makes waves" [2]. Waves are just diluted sunshine. Sandia National
Labs does a good job of putting this into perspective, assessing solar
electricity with a theoretical potential of 89,000 TW and ocean wave with 34
TW [3].

We could try to make the case that, despite the small potential, wave power is
convenient to extract. We do this for hydropower, for example. However, where
there are waves, there is wind. On cost and reliability, I don't see wave
power ever being able to beat out offshore wind.

1\. [http://www.withouthotair.com/](http://www.withouthotair.com/)

2\.
[http://www.withouthotair.com/c12/page_73.shtml](http://www.withouthotair.com/c12/page_73.shtml)

3\.
[http://www.sandia.gov/~jytsao/Solar%20FAQs.pdf](http://www.sandia.gov/~jytsao/Solar%20FAQs.pdf)

~~~
superkuh
Wind generators and some aspects of solar cells use rare earth metals. The big
advance of this particular company is not using rare earth magnets.

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Gibbon1
Not sure that is true, the large generators don't use permanent magnets. Old
school generators used a small DC motor with permanent magnets to power the
field windings. However I think the generators in large wind turbines use an
inverter to proved power to the field windings. (So that they can account for
small mismatches between the line frequency and shaft speed)

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ajmurmann
If we were to do this on a large scale, how would it impact the waves we are
seeing? Might that impact coastal wildlife? Might it even impact currents and
weather patterns?

~~~
nxzero
Some of the impacts are covered here:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wave_power&sectio...](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wave_power&section=15#Challenges)

If done on the scale suggested in the article, it would be catastrophic;
article infers that the whole ocean should be used as a source of engery,
which is madness.

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takno
Are they saying it could provide a third of America's power (I'm guessing
current electricity consumption) from America's coastal waters, or from the
whole of the world's oceans?

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Someone
The former, including your guess. They clearly say so in the video.

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takno
Wow. I literally didn't notice there was a video. Everything clickable just
looks like an ad to me now

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CapitalistCartr
We don't need super-solutions/magic bullets for electric generation. Tidal
could fill in where its best suited, such as Newfoundland. Imagine if we had:

20% Nuclear (been this for decades)

25% Natural Gas (27% now)

23% Wind (4% now)

22% Solar (1/2% now)

5% Tidal (none now)

5% Hydro (6%-7% for decades)

and no coal at all. (35%-50% for decades)

~~~
monk_e_boy
We kitesurf in a river mouth, the river is tidal. Behind the beach are a
couple of pools that are huge, these get filled and emptied by the tide twice
a day. The volume of water that slooshes out is amazing. Staggering. We love
to kite there cos we convert the energy into speed.

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OliverJones
How do these things stay on station? I live near the Gulf of Maine. When we
have an ocean storm, the lobster buoys and sometimes the navigation buoys end
up on the beach and have to be put back where they go. Other times they end
just lost in the ocean.

Sometimes divers have to go find the lobster pots. Pots that can't be pulled
are very wasteful.

Putting these generator things back might be quite costly. It will certainly
create jobs for commercial divers.

How do they keep the cables (surface to that big old tire thingy hanging in
the water) from getting tangled or broken in storms? That U. Maine wave tank
should be able to help them figure it out; its purpose is storm simulation.

How do they get their power to a shore-based distribution point?

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Animats
This is a magnetostrictive generator. It's not "no moving parts", it's
flexures instead of rotational joints. Historically, magnetostriction was a
weak effect, but some new materials have improved the efficiency.[1] Still,
operating at the ocean surface is usually a high-maintenance headache.

A no-moving-parts solution would be taking power from an ocean current by
using it as the working fluid in a magnetohydrodynamic generator. That's a
totally submerged system. The concept has been used in reverse to drive a
ship, so this can work in seawater.[2] But it requires superconducting
magnets, and all the cryogenics which go with that. If we ever get room
temperature superconductors, this might be useful.

[1] [http://revolution-green.com/magnetic-energy-harvesting-
using...](http://revolution-green.com/magnetic-energy-harvesting-using-
magnetostriction/) [2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yamato_1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yamato_1)

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af16090
Here's a more detailed article about the device from The Economist:
[http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-
technology/2167761...](http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-
technology/21677612-hitherto-obscure-piece-physics-may-be-secret-ocean-power)

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Osiris30
The UK's Witt Energy device can be used in marine and wave power applications
- and can harness kinetic motion in all six degrees - using pendulums. See
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11514839](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11514839)

~~~
electic
Those devices are impressive and they probably work, but as the video
correctly stated, the maintenance of those devices are the problem and makes
them cost prohibitive. Typically, devices with moving parts have a shorter
shelf-life, because of the hostile ocean environment.

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programmer_dude
Magnetostriction is news now? See:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetostriction](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetostriction)

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superkuh
They're doing it without high price rare earth magnets.

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wapapaloobop
...could provide a third of America's _present_ power requirements.

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Retric
U.S. energy demand has actually fairly steady. It was slightly lower in 2014
vs 2008.
[http://www.indexmundi.com/g/g.aspx?c=us&v=81](http://www.indexmundi.com/g/g.aspx?c=us&v=81)

A wide range of things have been getting more energy efficient TV, lighting,
computers, heating cooling, insulation, etc.

~~~
gcr
Does this account for things beyond electricity such as fossil fuels?

For example, the shift from using gasoline cars to electric cars would reduce
the amount of electricity we use, but would increase the amount of gas. This
could be a net good, if we assume that the electricity was produced in a
cleaner way.

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kuzmin
I think you mean increase electricity and reduce gas?

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iamcreasy
Every time I see a good article on sustainable energy I tweet it to Elon Musk.

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nxzero
>> "That's 352,670,000,000,000,000,000 gallons just sloshing around out
there."

^^ Stopped reading after this sentence.

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EGreg
>> Stopped reading

Stopped caring after seeing that

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nxzero
Your right, trying to exploit in an entire ecosystem for the benefit of a
single species is a great idea.

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golergka
That's literally what every species on the planet is trying to do, as well as
they can.

~~~
nxzero
All species self-regulate. If you feel you're able to provide notable research
countering this, please do; happy to admit I'm wrong.

[https://www.google.com/search?q=species+self-
regulation](https://www.google.com/search?q=species+self-regulation)

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eveningcoffee
_All species self-regulate._

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Matthew_Island#Mammals](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Matthew_Island#Mammals)

Also really fun comic about this: [http://www.stuartmcmillen.com/comics_en/st-
matthew-island/](http://www.stuartmcmillen.com/comics_en/st-matthew-island/)

 _happy to admit I 'm wrong._

There you go.

Now before you start blaming developed nations about their energy usage, it is
good to review the data persented here:
[http://visualizingeconomics.com/blog/2007/12/09/comparing-
po...](http://visualizingeconomics.com/blog/2007/12/09/comparing-population-
growth-china-india-africa-latin-america-western-europe-united-states)

~~~
nxzero
Here's an example of notable research, "Why most published research findings
are false" \- note that it's been cited over 3000 times:
[https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cluster=15681017780418799...](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cluster=15681017780418799273&hl=en&a_sdt=0,47)

In my opinion, the event you references is not notable research.

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eveningcoffee
I do not know where you live, so your exposure to the actual wilderness might
be limited, but if you had any real exposure, you would know that without big
predators (like wolves in the northern part of the world) or hunting, the
herbivores would bread to use all the available resources they can get.

Yes, ecosystems (that is, set of different species including plants) self
regulate themselves, but species try to maximize their numbers. If their
numbers get too big, they starve and by some unlucky coincidences, they my
become extinct due to resource exhaustion.

I actually hope that humans would be better in this.

