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Posted by Soulskill (46% noise) View
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cheezitmike writes “Researchers at Oregon State University are testing a new type of wave-energy converter to generate electricity from ocean waves: ‘Even when the ocean seems calm, swells are moving water up and down sufficiently to generate electricity. … For decades the challenge has been to build a device that can withstand monster waves and gale-force winds, not to mention corrosive saltwater, seaweed, floating debris and curious marine mammals. … In the most recent prototypes, a thick coil of copper wire is inside the first component, which is anchored to the seafloor. The second component is a magnet attached to a float that moves up and down freely with the waves. As the magnet is heaved by the waves, its magnetic field moves along the stationary coil of copper wire. This motion induces a current in the wire — electricity.’”
Meanwhile, researchers at Stanford are working to design “turbine kites” that operate at 30,000 feet, where air currents flow much faster than they do close to the ground. Ken Caldeira, a Standford associate professor, said, “If you tapped into 1% of the power in high-altitude winds, that would be enough to continuously power all civilization.”
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Boondoggle bait - by dontmakemethink (Score: 2) Thread
Boondoggle: n. work of little or no value done merely to keep or look busy. Political favor is unfortunately a far more dominant motivation to develop sustainable energy technology than sustainability itself. I’ve seen too many boondoggle projects get huge grants because they are the most visible, like big wind farms within sight of a large population, in favor of more suitable locations. If we can’t implement a centuries-old technology effectively today at ground level, what good is a new technology in one of the most foreign environments known to mankind? Ignorant energy harvesting is what got us in this mess in the first place! I have a strong respect for academic studies, but minds aimed at sustainable living are wasted on these implausible contrivances. There’s enough dorks on Star Trek forums trying to prove useless theories. Don’t waste our taxes on them.
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Old news - by justinlee37 (Score: 2) Thread
I spent a year at Oregon State University back in 2006-2007. They were talking about the ocean wave generators back then; it seems to be the darling of the engineering department there. Don’t ever go there by the way. It’s in a really small town with an annoying football culture and an annoying number of frat houses, filled with small-time criminals, bored cops, and very few permanent residents.
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Good luck with that - by Spy Handler (Score: 3, Insightful) Thread
“If you tapped into 1% of the power in high-altitude winds, that would be enough to continuously power all civilization.”
And if you tapped into 1% of the power in the heat of the earth’s core, that would be enough to power all of civilization on Zeti Reticuli, and if you tapped into 1% of the solar output by building a tiny Dyson sphere that would be enough to power all of Known Space. But let’s first ask ourselves, is it practical and cost-effective?
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Seasteading - by Garrett Fox (Score: 2) Thread
I’m interested in this topic partly because of its connection to “seasteading” or sea-surface colonization.
As with other forms of “alternative” energy, though, the problem is cost. Generating energy from renewable sources certainly sounds nifty. But does it make sense for the kind of low-budget settlement that could plausibly exist anytime soon, or even for conventional markets on land? The article summary is about making an energy generator that will work, period, not making something that can compete with existing energy sources. Right now, alt-energy proposals all seem to rely on governments heavily taxing fossil fuels and heavily subsidizing the new sources, creating a very unfree market. I’ve even heard the claim (though I’ve not looked into the numbers) that some of these systems cost more to build and maintain than the lifetime expected value of the energy they harvest.
Rather than a big, durable system, why not some kind of cheap low-energy system? I’ve heard of some tiny wind (?) energy generator developed for use in the Third World that costs next to nothing and produces a tiny but useful trickle of electricity. If you’ve got a bunch of those, it doesn’t much matter if some break in a big storm.
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Re:Consequences - by Anonymous Coward (Score: 3, Insightful) Thread
Can you suggest a source of energy that has no potential downside whatsoever? No? Then, kindly, stop whining. I swear, this attitude has got to stop. “Oh solution X for problem Y has a (potential) downside, it’s clearly unsafe, we should abandon it”. Happens every single fucking time power generation comes up on slashdot. Since when did people start thinking like Pierson’s Puppeteers? If a solution to a problem (in this case power generation) offers fewer downsides than the existing solutions (fossil fuels mainly), then please, by all means, implement it. This goes for passive power collection (ground based, sea based or orbital), fusion energy, biomass energy, even fission. Worry about the consequences, but don’t let those dangers blind you to the very real danger of staying the course with what we already have.
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