Life Alternate » Water

Aquamarine Oyster Expands on Wave Energy

Wispa — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 08:13:08 +0000

In Scotland, Aquamarine Power is pushing development of its wave power generator. The company is about to install its second Oyster machine in the coming months.

Wave Energy has been overshadowed by more prominent renewable energy forms such as Wind and Solar but there has been progress and some failures over the years.

Aquamarine has been experimenting in the North of Scotland with the Oyster and might just be on the verge of expanding the testing to a full scale wave energy plant. In a few months a second Oyster will be located on the seabed just off the coast of Scotland.

The company is in expansion mode and has made a bid for European funding for the development of a 28MW wave power project. Once completed the Oyster array will be the largest grid connected wave farm in the world.

Altogether a total of 10 Oysters will be bobbing up and down in the waves when operational.

Scotland is ideally located to capture wave energy. The constant swells push across the Atlantic Ocean and can contain a massive amount of energy to harvest. This is also the major problem that Aquamarine have to overcome. Wave machines have to withstand the massive forces and being offshore they have to be extremely reliable.

The big advantage here is wave energy can operate at night unlike solar power. Hopefully the project will become cost-effective and wave energy will become a more common form of renewable energy.

Aquamarine Oyster gets A Wave of Funding

Wispa — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 07:51:49 +0000

Aquamarine Power has received an investment boost of £11 million to continue the development of it`s Oyster Wave Energy system.

Located in Scotland, Aquamarine are well placed for the research of wave energy technologies. The rugged coasts provide a stiff challenge for Wave Energy developments that only the best will survive.

The funding came from and injection of £8m from power technology group ABB with another £3m raised from existing shareholders in the company.

The Oyster Wave Energy machines are anchored on the seabed close to shore and use the rising and falling of the waves.

Wave Energy has proposed some difficult challenges for scientists which require a much stronger device than Solar or Wind Energy systems. The harsh environment can easily bring destruction with the massive power contained in the seas. Aquamarine and other companies hope to tap in to some of that energy.

Water Shortages in the Middle east

Wispa — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 14:53:20 +0000

The Countries of the Middle East are fortunate enough to have vast resources of Oil reserves in their territories. What is lacking is an abundance of water.

The Oil produced in ancient seas that have long since dried-up and have been replace with equally vast areas of arid desert. The lack of water has always been a factor of life in the area and sources have been guarded like gold. With increasing population the demand is growing to a point where critical water shortages are becoming a national concern.

The average water used by each and every once of us is around 6,000 cubic meters each year. For those living in the Arab states the amount available reduces to around 500 cubic meters with some extremely dry states have to make do with less than 200. There is clearly a large difference between 6,000 and 200 and this is only going to get worse.

Precious water found in underground aquifers are slowly becoming dry and add to this the increase in population then the problems faced are going to be immense. I expect most of those states would gladly have struck sources of water than the undrinkable crude oil.

In our highly technical world we use vast amounts of drinkable water in the production of foods and materials which mostly ends up contaminated and undrinkable with toxins. This has to be disposed off and often adds further contamination as it runs in to rivers and streams.

In a few years nearly every country in the world is going to face some water shortage problems, the population is growing and usages is going to increase. At some point the wells are going to run dry and we will be standing at the edge off a cliff about to fall over.

Maybe we cannot live without our cars but we certainly cannot exist without water.

Tapping Wave Energy in Scotland

Wispa — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 06:26:18 +0000

Aquamarine Power plans to harvest the energy of the easy with the Oyster.

Wave Energy has not seem as much development as other forms of renewable energy like solar and wind power. But developments are taking place around the globe some with more success than others.

Aquamarine hopes to install their new wave machine, the Oyster 2, around the waters of Scotland next year. Build like a large door hinge laying on its side, this massive machine will lay anchored in shallow water. As the swell of the sea passes back and forth over the Oyster the upper part of the machine will rock as each wave passes.

Driving hydraulic pistons the movement will pump water through pipes to an onshore electrical generator. Splitting the device in two parts has some advantages. Should the sea side device malfunction, which might be quite common given the nature of the seas the generating side will still function. Using multiple Oysters would provide sufficient backup and increased production of electricity from a single onshore station.

Oyster 2 is an advanced version of Oyster 1 which provided the company with information to make the new version more reliable and efficient.

The waters around Scotland are ideal for wave power. The Atlantic ocean gradually gathers the energy as it flows from the Americas towards the coasts of Europe and Scotland. This can sometimes be quite powerful with raging storms crashing on shore. If the Oyster 2 can survive that then there is lots of potential here for cleaner energy generation.

For home owners this type of device might be a little bit too large scale for many of us. A fortunate few may have streams or rivers running through our properties and this could be quite a boost to our energy needs. Using the equivalent of modern day water wheels or torpedoes anchored in the streams, energy can be harnessed as long as the water flows.

Fog Catching nets in Peru

Wispa — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 15:22:24 +0000

In some parts of the world rain water is virtually non existent . Other methods of extracting water from the environment have to be though up. In Peru, the land of mountains and lamas, the people of Bellavista have been capturing the moisture of thick fog that that sweeps in from the Pacific ocean. Using large nets, much like how dew forms on a spiders web in the mornings, the water drips in to gutters which flows down to collection tanks for the village.

In addition to this small tress are planted on the hillside which are irrigate by the water and eventually themselves become fog catchers adding more sources of water.

Before the village had this source, water had to be truck in to the village at a cost many time more than those connected to the mains supply.

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