Since diving into the deep end when it comes to energy issues, almost every day sees new fascinating concepts, approaches, and technologies. Fascinating ... exciting ... even hope inspiring at times. And, as well, as the passion builds, so many of these are truly Energy COOL.
Chances are if you're opening up an Energy COOL diary, defining cool for you (and me) doesn't come from American Idol or the pages of People magazine, but more fundamentally about thinking and learning about things that have a real potential to change the world that we do and will live in.
That Independent Natural Resources' SEADOG(tm) Pump uses wave power to provide a renewable path for water desalinization so that there is zero-carbon energy and zero-carbon waste water desalinization is not just Energy COOL, but also seriously Wave Cool.
The SEADOGTM pump captures ocean-wave energy to pump large volumes of seawater, consuming no fuel or electricity and creates no polluting by-products in the process. The pump uses buoyancy to convert wave energy to mechanical energy. The main components of the SEADOGTM pump include a buoyancy chamber, buoyancy block, piston assembly, piston shaft, piston cylinder, and intake and exhaust valves. When positioned in the water the buoyancy block (filled with air) floats within the buoyancy chamber, moving up and down in relation to the ocean waves and swells. The buoyancy block is connected to the piston shaft which in-turn moves the piston assembly through the piston cylinder.
So, that is the pump.
But, what the SEADOGTMB system does is takes the pumped water and puts it into an hydroelectricity generation system. Store the water so that it can be a baseload, "drawing from the water holding area when it is needed to match demand". INRI is claiming that the "system has the potential to be cost competitive with any other form of base-load power generation".
The claimed benefits of this setup are pretty impressive:
- Pump operation requires no fuel or electricity and introduces zero carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
- The pump is an adaptable device that can be scaled and configured for most of the world's shorelines.
- Pump design and construction is simple and utilizes materials that are readily available almost anywhere. Pump manufacturing is well suited for job creation in the region of deployment.
- The pump device contains no electrical or hydraulic components which can be damaged by seawater and possibly introduce pollutants to the water or air.
- An installed and operating pump system (array of pumps) will continue to function if one or more pumps are shut down for maintenance.
And, for desalinization,
The pump is capable of delivering high volumes of water at sufficient head pressure to supply water for shoreline desalination facilities.
The SEADOGTM pump has the potential to make desalination much less expensive as energy consumption can represent as much as one-third of the operating cost of desalinated water.
In their writeup,
Renewable Energy Access explained it as follows:
To create hydroelectricity, the SEADOG ocean-wave pump captures energy from ocean swells or waves to pump seawater to a land-based holding area or water tower, where the water can be returned to the ocean through hydroelectric turbines.
In addition, because the device pumps water to a reservoir, it can store salt water or desalinated fresh water in the form of potential energy to generate power on demand, even if the current wave regime during a particular period is too low to generate power.
The SeaDog offers the potential for GHG-free energy generation and GHG-water desalinzation.
Again, back to Renewable Access:
The lack of sufficient fresh water is a growing concern in many regions of the world and seawater desalination is increasingly essential. The state of Texas alone has more than 100 desalination plants. Energy consumption is significant in desalination, sometimes accounting for as much as one-third of the operating cost of desalinated water.
How many of those new coal plants could SeaDogs make obsolete overnight?
This is quite powerful because, reportedly, the Sea Dog is competitive with other wave power systems before one considers the 'corollary' benefit of desalinization.
"As a wave energy collector, its simplicity, apparent efficiency and effectiveness is commendable and can be placed among the best available wave energy collectors to date," said Frank Warnakulasuriya, Ph.D., assistant head of the department, Marine Engineering Technology, Texas A&M University at Galveston.
This past fall, SeaDog has been going through testing in the Gulf of Mexico. I, for one, wait to hear about these tests to hope that
A broader vision ...
A recent Energy COOL focused on the TREC program, which looks to create a linkage of renewable power systems between Europe and North Africa, for enriching the region while lowering carbon footprints. One of the interesting twists is that the Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) systems for North Africa can also provide significant amounts of desalinization capacity. Solar Power ... Wave Power ... renewable power for helping to solve another (very) serious challenge facing humanity, Peak Water ... Now, this is starting to look like a set of systems-of-systems implications and benefits that go beyond Energy COOL to, simply, Societally COOL!
SILVER BBs, not a Silver Bullet ...
If Sea Dog works, it will not solve Global Warming, it will not end all the globe's water challenges, it will not mean that we can sleep soundly at night. It will not be a Silver Bullet to solve all our problems.
But, there is unlikely to be any such Silver Bullet ... nuclear fusion will not miraculously create power too cheap to meter, NanoSolar photovolaiics (PV) thin solar will not magically appear on the world's rooftops eliminating coal, nanotubes won't ... No, there are going to be a myriad of Energy COOL (and Energy MUNDANE) developments in the coming years. (Many are already in hand.) We must take these developments, these Silver BBs, Silver Dust Motes, and, in deploying these various pieces of Silver perhaps, if we are lucky and extremely wise in decision-making, we will avert catastrophic climate change and create a path toward a Properous, Climate-Friendly Society.
We can all help make
America
Energy Smart.
Ask yourself:
Are you doing your part to
ENERGIZE AMERICA?