"If we could harness 0.1 percent of the energy in the ocean," says Professor Michael Bernitsas of the University of Michigan, "we could support the energy needs of 15 billion people."
With that goal in mind, Bernitsas has developed a novel approach to water-based power that takes its inspiration from the movements of fish to generate electricity.
Most water-based power sources (like turbines) require fast-moving water to accomplish electricity generation. But while a turbine requires water currents of 5-6 knots, most of the world's water moves at a much slower pace: 2-3 knots.
Bernitsas felt those slower currents could still do the job, so he designed the Vortex Induced Vibrations for Aquatic Clean Energy (VIVACE) machine to tap into minor fluctuations and vibrations in the water to generate power. The technology behind VIVACE copies aspects of fish movement, says Bernitsas. "Fish curve their bodies to glide between the vortices shed by the bodies of the fish in front of them. Their muscle power alone could not propel them through the water at the speed they go, so they ride in each others' wake."
If it works on a large scale, Bernitsas says VIVACE energy would cost about 5.5 cents per kilowatt hour -- well below the cost of even wind power -- without having an impact on marine life.
Bernitsas details his work and his prototype in the current issue of the Journal of Offshore Mechanics and Arctic Engineering.
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Fabulous idea. And potentially, an astonishingly low impact form of energy generation…
When the American Corporate Star has fallen from the sky, and the rest of mankind returns from the wild consumerism they promoted for commissions and ROI, to a world paced at a more friendly rate for men, we will each require much less for survival than our, large-bodied, overtly hungry, super-stimulated, over sexed, air-conditioned, pampered, propagandized, American counterpart! At that time, super-insulations will be allowed to the masses, no longer under the corporatism thumb of American patent laws! We will all enjoy the energy reducing effects of these remarkable products, as well a Cold Fusion, with Denatured Uranium and its super-batteries! Chinese intellectual powers are at this very moment, undermining the patents held secret for so long by the likes of Exxon and other corporations. They are also rewriting the Science, Physics, Math and Technology books in a most unbiased and uncomfortable way for theYanklee Doodle Liars! On the death of corporate America, will rise the “Fourth Turning” in America and the Age of Aquarius for the world, and the great evil, corporate America will go down in infamy, ROI will become a forbidden series of words, “Shareholder” will mean a death sentence for treason, and a new world government, spawned in Asian philosophies will run the world, complete with re-education and rehabilitation of the willing! The balance will be sent to the Gulag, America, filled with polluted, “Third World” Johannesburg-like cities as is Detroit City today, to rot in infamy in the monuments to Corporatism their with the corrupt “American Dream”. For the rest of mankind, minimal energy from Oceans, Solar, Tidal, Hydro, Wind, and geo-thermal, combined with the new liberated technologies such as super-insulation technologies, will make a decent, humble, and respectable life possible for all! We will worship sustainability and the environment, and live by biologies’ rules, in ‘oneness’ with Nature, for a life and death free from Capitalist pressures, with much happiness and creativity, little materialism, and as only part of the community of all mankind, a paradigm shift from today, and the evils of corporatism!
Man I tried to read your comment but i’m too stoned to get past the blah blah blah….
I would love to hear more about how the kinetic energy to electrical energy conversion works for this system. A note, however, commercial wind energy has a levelized cost of 3-5 cents per kWh, so this is not significantly cheaper. Wave power, however, may be the only zero-emission energy that can supply base load power.
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