The Green Optimistic

If you want to produce electricity using a river near your home, the best way you can do it is to build a small-scale hydroelectric generator. Often called as a low-impact hydro, micro-hydro or run-of-stream hydro generator, this system is not very hard to build.

We all need electricity for powering different stuff in our home, to make our lives more pleasant. But if the electricity is produced using green sources it’s even better. One of the most used types of energy up to now was hydropower, but this one involves the construction of dams, weirs or other structures that could affect fish.

The SeaKinetics company recently has developed an innovative, tethered tidal and marine current energy generator known as the HydroWing, that is capable to provide zero carbon emission renewable energy by converting tidal power into clean electricity.

Just recently, Scotland-based energy developer Pelamis has signed a joint-venture with the European energy giant Vattenfall, for the huge energy project off Scotland’s Shetland Islands. The costs of the project rise to almost $100 million.

Queen’s University Belfast, Aquamarine Power Ltd. and the Scottish government have recently launched the largest working hydro-electric wave energy device, taking an important step for global wave energy industry.

Mankind has been adopting the working principles of natural phenomenons and animals since ages. Now, when it’s time to learn from fish to develop wave-powered generators, it’s also time to learn what others have learned from birds – and use them in the seas, to gather energy which they would later turn into electricity.

The unit has been invented by Pembrokeshire engineer Richard Ayre, featuring three generators mounted on a triangular frame and due to its floating crane it can easily be lowered and recovered from the seabed.

One of the simplest ideas of harvesting the ocean power was developed by Rauno Koivusaari, a fin diver who got inspired by exploring the depths of the seas and lots of shipwrecks.

Engineers are performing the last tests and measurements before the grid-connection off the coast of Port Kembla, near Sydney. The system will be generating about 2.5MW by harvesting air pressure that will turn a wind turbine.

A spinoff from the Swedish military and aircraft design firm Saab, Minesto has developed a new concept of underwater wave energy using a simple 7 ton kite turbine design. Exactly like a kite in the wind, the Deep Green underwater turbine collects and stores the power of the ocean.

A company called Renew Blue, Inc. will use wave power to run a desalination plant in Freeport, Texas. The resulted water will be finally put into corn-based biodegradable plastic bottles. The SEADOG power system is made from a buoy which puts in motion a piston mechanism that rotates a water wheel to generate electricity.

Scotland built a 180 m tube they call “The Sea Snake”, that will capture the waves’ movements and energy and transmit it via subshore cables to the land.

Riverbank Power has developed a project that is of high interest. Water gathered in a bungalow on a river shore will fall in a 600m deep gallery where turbines are mounted. The water pressure will rotate the huge turbines which will create electrical power.

Seattle-based Hydrovolts Inc. has developed a new system which can be used to generate electricity from small, unassuming waterways such as irrigation canals, without the use of dams.

Florida’s needs of electricity have made scientists think about never energy solutions. The needs of 4-7 million homes are so big that conventional energy would be too expensive and pollutant to still be used.

The Oyster is basically a steel oscillating wave surge converter. It is fitted with double-direction water pistons, deployed near-shore at depths of 10 to 12m. As waves activate it, the pump delivers high pressure water through a sub-sea pipeline straight to the shore, as seen in the picture above.

Oceanlinx has started since few years ago a renewable energy project based on wave energy. The device is a Oscillating Water Column which was first deployed in 2005 but this had undergone planned refurbishment and modifications this year. Today the device is again up and running and can generate from 100 Kw up to 1.5 MW, depending on the waves and requirements from consumers.

By combining wind and wave power, the energy output can be drastically increased. The Wave Treader that enables the mix-up will probably be available on the market by 2011.

UK government recently made public a plan to start harvesting tidal energy in Severn Estuary were tides rise and fall twice a day up to 12 yards.

VIVACE (Vortex Induced Vibrations for Aquatic Clean Energy) is a newly invented machine harvesting slow-moving ocean and river currents. A researcher from the University of Michigan has come up with the system that works like a fish, turning potentially destructive vibrations found in fluid flows into electricity.