Hydro Power Thread

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Underwater Kite Harnesses Ocean Energy


October 23rd, 2009

Written by Susan Kraemer

http://cleantechnica.com/2009/10/23/...-ocean-energy/

A completely new concept of underwater wave energy using a simple 7 ton kite turbine design has been developed by Minesto; which is a spinoff from the Swedish military and aircraft design firm Saab. The Deep Green underwater turbine captures the power of the ocean just like a kite in wind.

The system could generate 18 terawatthours of energy annually, enough to provide nearly 4 million British households with reliably green electricity every year. UK households now use about a third of what average US households use in energy.

Originally Saab was working on a kite design for a wind turbine, but found that the concept would actually work better in water, which is 832 times more dense than air.

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Biologically Inspired Ocean Power Systems


BIOSYSTEMS WEBSITE

BioPower Systems is commercialising ocean power conversion technologies. Through application of biomimicry, we have adopted nature's mechanisms for survival and energy conversion in the marine environment and have applied these in the development of our proprietary wave and tidal power systems.

Our technologies inherit benefits developed during 3.8 Billion years of evolutionary optimization in nature’s ocean laboratory.The resulting systems move and sway in tune with the forces of the ocean, and naturally streamline when extreme conditions prevail. This leads to lightweight designs and associated low costs.

The inherently simple bioWAVE™ and bioSTREAM™ devices are designed to supply utility-scale grid-connected renewable energy using efficient modular systems. These systems will reside beneath the ocean surface, out of view, and in harmony with the living creatures that inspired their design.

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bioWAVE™



bioSTREAM™



bioBASE™

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Engineers Use Aerospace Approach to Design Wave Energy System


Nov. 20, 2009

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...1119111329.htm

The ocean is a potentially vast source of electric power, yet as engineers test new technologies for capturing it, the devices are plagued by battering storms, limited efficiency, and the need to be tethered to the seafloor.

- Now, a team of aerospace engineers is applying the principles that keep airplanes aloft to create a new wave-energy system that is durable, extremely efficient, and can be placed anywhere in the ocean, regardless of depth.

- While still in early design stages, computer and scale-model tests of the system suggest higher efficiencies than wind turbines. The system is designed to effectively cancel incoming waves, capturing their energy while flattening them out, providing an added application as a storm-wave breaker.