Wave Power: Spotlight on Ocean Power Delivery Ltd

Every time I see these in the news I ask myself several questions.

1. How do boats get aroungd them?
2. How much steel and energy is being used to fabricate these monsters?
3. What is the environmental inpact?
4. How would they hold up to a hurricane?
Lifespan? Reuse? Hydraulic fluid leaks.....

It is an idea, but is it a good idea.

The parts of the coast used for these things will be off limits.

Wow, i gotta get me one of those.... just curious, how much do these awsome things cost? are they more or less than wind or Nuclear? now i've opend up a sore point with a few people.

I'll try to find the cost, but of course they're going to be pretty expensive right now; they're just getting started.

As they get more popular, the capital costs needed will go down fast, but the cost of waves will always be the same.

I wonder what the density is for a square kilometer and 30MW's. If they could be packed in a little tighter and have more in the same space.

I'm sure there's still more efficiency to be squeezed out just by designing it better.

On the site somewhere they say that their #1 goal was to make the things durable and as maintenance-free as possible, and that they could probably have made them even more efficient if they had compromised a bit on that..

It's a young technology (in that form, anyway), but very promising!

"1. How do boats get aroungd them?"

Uh, they go around. These things would be marked on maps. I'm sure there would also be lights and radio signals. It's totally solvable.

The Earth is 71% water, there's enough space for both boats and wave farms.

"2. How much steel and energy is being used to fabricate these monsters?"

As much as a couple wind turbines, probably.

"3. What is the environmental inpact?"

Compared to what? A coal plant?

Even in the absolute, probably very low. Nothing has zero, but lets not have double standards either.. If these buoys are unacceptable, they are pretty damn low on the list of things that are unacceptable.

"4. How would they hold up to a hurricane?"

Better than oil rigs and boats, that's for sure.

As for hydraulic oil, they could use some bio-oil. Or since it is at least a dual haul, it is probably not much of a worry. Any breaks would be contained. But I'm only guessing.

"How would they hold up to a hurricane?"

Good question, but another way to look at it is, how much energy would you produce from water movement created from a storm of that magnitude?

Another point to note is that in taking power out of the waves you will also reduce the impact on the coast line.

If the wave farm were just off the coastline of one of the villages which are falling in to the sea (can't recall the names) then the erosion of the cliffs would be reduced. Not sure how large an effect this would have - but it is another aspect.

Just thought of another upside, if you have a whole area that boats can't go in to it can't be fished. This produces a potential 'safe haven' for fish - or am I way off base here?

Given that technical problems are solved, I can't see a downside to wave power; which is probably why all earlier research has been stifled, and why it's the last thing green-abee politicians mention, once they've exhausted talking about the variability of wind and therefore the requirement for nuclear...

Renewability: I'd love to see MBDC's stamp on it: (http://mbdc.com/).
Let's see the materials, folks. And let's make them from 'garbage'. How about a component to remove chemicals from the water / improve water health? Any way to harness photosynthetic Algae as part of the process?
Another thought that smacks in my mind: ..."OIL"... Great. High-pressure Oil. How much do we need for each one? Where is it coming from? If they have the bio-oil answers, why don't they boast them?
Could they be used en masse, transported expressly to mitigate storm impact (hellooooo Gulf of Mexico! -- oops, shipping traffic. But wait, there IS plenty of room for navigation, just keep those Captains sober ;)
CPF&A
Justin

I doubt these take much energy out of a wave. It's not as if it's breaking the wave. I think I read they shut down in large waves or stiffen the hydraulics or something, as to not damage the equipment.

The article above tells you exactly how it handles larger wave sets:

"An oil-to-water heat exchanger is included to dump excess power in large seas and provide the necessary thermal load in the event of loss of the grid."

So the excess energy generated gets dumped into the sea as heat.

I seriously doubt that even a large installation of these would have a noticeable impact on the wave energy hitting the coast. That's the same as expecting there to be less wind downwind from a wind farm.

I can't imagine a hurricane would have any effect. Think of a log floating out in the ocean, it just rises and falls on the waves.

There would be no reduction in wave energy when the water reaches the shore. Do you have any idea how much mass the ocean contains? These generators just float on the top.

wave farms have been tried over and over. the enviroment
is so hard to overcome that
all have been turned to junk
in to short a time frame for them to be useful. the money
to install them has never been returned to the investors.

"wave farms have been tried over and over. the enviroment
is so hard to overcome that
all have been turned to junk"

Yeah, all technologies need time to mature, but it's not like we don't have thousands and thousands of boats that spend decades in the water, or buoys and offshore platforms... There's nothing impossible about wave farms; In fact, the technical challenges that they face are easier to solve than those we solved to create most of the "dirty" industrial infrastructure we currently have.

I got to reading this post and forwarded it to a friend... okay, my mum, who lives in Oregon. She isn't comfortable with posting comments, so I'll be her voice:
"I did find it interesting. Found it interesting too that they do not mention
OSU [Oregon State University]/CLPUD [Central Lincoln Public Utility District] collaberation in works off Reedsport [Oregon]. The dumping excess heat part bothers me because it would have to have a very measurable impact on ocean ecosystems. They say the 'dead zone' off our coast is the result of some kind of thermal inversion
pattern and it is about 10 sq mi and growing. Fishermen have known about it for years. Anyway Orknay is only about 4-5 yrs old and they have no e-impact data [published] yet."

CPF&A
Justin

Healthy skepticism is one thing, but doubts about a
technology based on pure ignorance is just so much unwelcomed flotsam and jetsam. Everyone should realize that these things will not go into commercial use by the thousands, all at once. Even if design errors are still present at the initial launches, there will be plenty of time and opportunity for these weaknesses to show up. If some oil is lost in the process, big deal. You're talking tiny amounts in a gigantic body of water. Even the Exxon Valdez spill, with its millions of gallons has had little long term environmental impact. If you want to see a lot of oil spills nearby, walk on any parking lot and look down. You'll see plenty of them.
The biggest error of environmentalists is that they are ignorant of nature and
think it far more fragile than it really is. They also place far too much value on the preservation of species that clearly should be allowed to die out. Millions of species have come and gon; I don't think a snail darter fish
in an obscure backwater needs
to be put on life support. The snail darter specie has no intrinsic value and I demand that my tax dollars not be
spent to satisfy those who claim it does have value.

The early wave farms that I know about were put along the shoreline, where the force of waves breaking, undertow, etc. is huge - plus, they were anchored to the bottom, so they couldn't "give" with the forces. These new devices avoid all of those problems.

40 floating devices, covering 1 sq. kilometer can power about 25 - 30K homes. They don't "block" power from the coast as they are designed to operate at 60 meters...beyond the closure (I'm thinking CA coast). Storms don't bother them, as they are designed to simply ride them out, and they don't try to capture all that power. The biggest problem with them is that each one has two tethers, one on each end, one of which branches into 3 tethers near the seafloor, keeping them in place. That’s 2 long lines and 3 short lines going from each device to the seafloor. Tethers are connected to anchors or mooring "pads." Anchors cause a lot of damage to the seafloor, the mooring pads would be better, acting as new hard substrate which will attract fish, etc. That's all fine and good until the devices are decommissioned. Then you have to rip up habitat to remove the array. The worst thing is, these tethers will catch errant fishing nets, gear, etc. and form a kind of forest of tethers with lots of stuff caught on them. Marine mammals, especially, get caught in these kinds of traps. There is so much fishing gear floating around the world's oceans, (let's quit thinking of our oceans as "vast" since we're having huge impacts on all of them) that this debris aggregation is a serious problem. This "forest" will also interfere with migration patterns, depending on where it is placed. A 1km farm, using 40 devices, with an attendant forest of tethers and caught debris, will only power 25 - 30K homes (less than 1/10 of those in S.F, for example). This means the scale needed to make a dent in use of fossil fuel could well be huge. It also seems testing for noise has not been carried out yet in a comprehensive way--another difficult issue. It would seem there are some pretty tough wrinkles still to be ironed out.

As an engineer, my opinion is that they have basically taken the right design approach. That is to design for survivability, and low maintenance. You build it stronger than it needs to be, in order to demonstrate the concept. (Wind power development was apparently the same way). Prove that it can last several years, and survive a category 5. Then think about making it lighter, cheaper, faster, more efficient...

I work for British wave power company.

Although still in its infancy, it is a very promising sector. Some random adjectives: scalable, renewable, local (saves the cost in energy of transporting electricity over long distance). Research is very active in the UK and France has a promising project too. And some concepts (search for Salter's Duck) originated years ago from some of them are far more interesting than the makeshift prototypes already at sea, build by some contemporary companies who deliver the usual waffle: "our device is the most competitive etc..."

As for carbon payback which is a very relevant issue that most people tend to forget, the order of magnitude is 2 years for the device I work on.
The main causes for carbon emissions are materials and transportation for installation and maintenance. In fact, in the case of the Pelamis, the device has to be towed ashore for most of maintenance interventions.

As for environmental impacts, some coastline based devices tend to disturb the sediment transportation. I am also concerned about acoustic disturbance of marine mammls, but I guess it will be addressed at the time of prototype testing for all companies. On the whole, I am not as concerned about lolathemola (see his/her comment), though.

Without even talking about cost-effectiveness, I can tell you that wave energy has a bunch of technical an practical challenges: design of the power takeoff system, power quality, corrosion, biofouling, control issues, extreme conditions... As a comparison, I would say that we are probably at the stage of the Wright brothers in the early days of aviation. But I am working days and nights to crack the code ;)

There's a great google talk on the Pelamis:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovw-pHqyP7E

Questions like boat avoidance, environmental impact, and longevity are addressed. Its pretty impressive.

tricontinental is a power solution company base in Nigeria and has burden to inprove the power problem in her nation.WE are seeking proffersional bodies like yours to advice us to better the power situation of the great country likes Nigeria as a developing ,and leading Nation in Africa.We will appreciate your advice .

regards
Ogar moses (CEO.TRICONTINENTAL ENGINEERING LIMITED).

all i can say is wave power is a new revolution

Okay, I've done my research. Wave power is cheaper, easier, less space consuming than any other form of energy I have heard of yet. (By space consuming I'm talking about wind turbines. Huge space that could be used for new factories to be constructed that can produce all the cabon we weren't by using wave power. Stupid darn factories!!!) Wave energy can power more than you think. One buoy (I'm NOT talking about a 25m. long pelamis here!) can power 150 homes. Now Imagine the U.S. having 20 wave parks wih 350 buoys each. Thats 90,000 homews being powered by wave power. That ought to put a "dent" in our fossil fuel dependence!!!