Category: Hydrokinetics
[The Vector] Ocean Energy Projects – An International Sampling
| September 15, 2010 | Posted by Kathy-Heshelow under Hydrokinetics |
The Vector recently ran a story on the potential of ocean energy. Following up on that story, The Vector is reporting on some international ocean energy projects that are being installed, tested or are in operation. A further story on domestic projects will follow in the days to come. Ocean energy includes wave energy, ocean current energy, tidal energy, offshore wind, ocean thermal gradient energy, hydrogen production and more.
** Norway’s Statoil is testing the world’s first floating wind turbine called Hywind, a 2.3 MW Siemens turbine moored to the deepwater seabed. The head of New Energy at Statoil said that Hywind is really in research and development stage. “If we succeed, then we will have taken a major step in moving the wind power industry offshore. Floating wind turbines can make a major contribution…” (Press Release, Statoil.)
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[The Vector] Hydropower Improvement Act of 2010
| September 4, 2010 | Posted by Kathy-Heshelow under Hydrokinetics |
The National Hydropower Association (NHA) released a statement on July 13th 2010 praising introduction of a bipartisan bill by Senators Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Patty Murray (D-WA), Mike Crapo )R-ID) and Maria Cantwell (D-WA). The statement thanked the Senators who “…show great vision in turning to hydropower to provide clean, reliable, domestic energy generation, while also creating jobs in every state in the country – in fact, the measure will help create 1.4 million cumulative jobs over the next 14 years.”
The NHA hopes that the bill will help hydropower in the upcoming Energy Bill and in policymaking, which should include long-term incentives for project development.
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[The Vector] Ocean Energy Projects – A Domestic Sampling
| August 22, 2010 | Posted by Kathy-Heshelow under Hydrokinetics |
The Vector has written about Ocean Energy in earlier posts. Today we highlight some exciting domestic projects.
** The first U.S. Wave Energy farm launched a test program this spring in Oregon. Ocean Power Technologies (OPT) is running the test program, with floating buoys that harness the natural up and down movement of the waves. The ebb and flow movement causes the pump to move in a circular motion which drives an electric generator, with energy sent to shore through submerged cables. This farm is being financed by Oregon tax credits, Pacific Northwest Generating Cooperative and the U.S. Department of Energy.
** Verdant Power initiated the Roosevelt Island Tidal Energy (RITE) Project in New York City’s East River. It is a three phase project. Phase 1 (2002-2006) was proto-type testing, and Phase 2 (2006-2008) was demonstration. Currently it is in Phase 3 (2009-2012) with the MW Scale build out. Verdant operated six full-scale turbines, which successfully demonstrated the Free Flow System turbines as being Read More
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About Brian Polagye, Contributor to “Renewable Energy Facts and Fantasies” – Hydrokinetics
| August 1, 2010 | Posted by Craig Shields under Hydrokinetics |
The University of Washington’s Dr. Brian Polagye contributed to the book’s chapter on hydrokinetics.
His work focuses on responsibly harnessing the kinetic energy in moving water, in particular, developing a better understanding of the practically recoverable resource for tidal streams. He says, “There is no one energy solution that gets you all the way there. I mean, you wouldn’t legitimately expect to replace all the power we currently consume with a single source like in-stream river hydrokinetics. That being said, I think that river, tidal, wave, ocean current, all of these can make a valuable contribution, either nationally or regionally, to the electric grid. So I think it’s important not to discard an idea simply because it doesn’t solve all of our problems.”
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Energy Policy and Land Use
| June 1, 2010 | Posted by Craig Shields under Hydrokinetics |
The migration to renewable energy is complicated by a great number of factors in the renewable energy “triumvirate” -technological, economic, and political. The chart below shows one of many different dimensions of this complexity: land use – which, when you think about it, touches on all three. The data in the chart is derived from:
1) a paper titled Alternative Energy and Land Use from Clinton Andrews et al.
2) land intensiveness data from McDonald et al (2009)
3) land area data from Melillo et al (2009), and
4) global energy demand data from EIA
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Tidal Energy – By Guest Blogger Anil – Continued
| February 20, 2010 | Posted by Anil under Hydrokinetics |
Continued from yesterday…..
Another drawback of tidal energy is the dependence on location for a successful project. As with most of other water based methods of energy generation, the location plays an essential role in harnessing the potential power source; site procurement costs gets high increasing the cost of the entire project.
Currently there are very few tidal power stations in the world. The largest and oldest is located in northern France at the La France river mouth estuary. The other sites suitable for the utilization of tidal power exist in many places around the world majorly in France, the United Kingdom, Former Soviet Union (now Russia), Canada, and the United States. Before setting up the plant, it is important to have a proper feasibility study.
Read More
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Tidal Energy – By Guest Blogger Anil
| February 19, 2010 | Posted by Anil under Hydrokinetics |
Water covers about 70 percent of our planet, majorly composed of the oceans with endless waves and perpetual tides. Water is a source that lays the foundation for many forms of renewable energies like Hydro energy, Ocean energy, Tidal energy and Wave energy. With the advent of newer renewable energy sources, water is heavily counted upon as the source of green energy. The major advantage of water based energy sources is that water can be harnessed to create energy with almost zero carbon emission.
Read More
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Hydrokinetics and the DoE
| December 5, 2009 | Posted by Craig Shields under Hydrokinetics |
We’ve seen a marked increase in the attention — and the funding — given to hydrokinetically-generated energy by the Obama Administration’s Department of Energy. Personally, I’m gratified by this; until recently, I had been concerned that this subject was being badly neglected; I’m glad to see this turnaround.
I happened to be working on my book on renewables yesterday, and had the good fortune to knock out the chapter on hydrokinetics, which is based on a talk with Dr. Brian Polagye at the University of Washington. Brian is part of the DoE’s Northwest National Marine Energy Research Center for Tidal Energy; I was referred to him by an expert on the subject at the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) who told me, “In my opinion, Dr. Polagye is the nation’s leading researcher on hydrokinetic energy.” Good enough for me!
A few highlights:
I think – or I guess I should say I thought – of hydrokinetic energy as being essentially constant. The sun doesn’t shine 24 hours a day, but rivers never stop flowing. Yet there are significant variations in the extractable power from flowing rivers. As I suppose I should have surmised, rivers, based on rainfall as they are, experience significant seasonal variations. And tidal currents, of course, have periods of relative calm in cycles during the day. So there is nothing unique about hydro as a renewable source from this perspective.
As I noted in the white paper I wrote on the subject last summer, those wishing to submerge power generating devices in the rivers or oceans — in the US, at least — face a considerable battle in terms of regulation. As an advocate for renewables, that rankles me — yet Brian helped me put this in perspective. According to what he told me, the DoE is far more involved in expediting approval for such projects now than they were when the original devices were developed — but it’s still not easy – nor should it be. “If both sides aren’t screaming, regulators probably aren’t doing their job,” he said. “Environmentalists should probably be concerned that regulators aren’t sufficiently aggressive in protecting aquatic ecosystems, and entrepreneurs in power companies should be yelling that regulators are too sheltering and too slow to grant approvals.”
When I asked for an example to illustrate the point, Brian replied, “Easy. I’m up here in Puget Sound. If I have a turbine in the water and an orca washes up with its belly cut open – even if that was really caused by a ship’s propeller, it would set this operation back a decade – if it wouldn’t kill it completely.”
For my money, the real issue with hydro is scale. The theoretical limit to the amount of hydrokinetic energy that can be generated in our rivers, for instance, is the potential energy of the water in the first place, i.e., the weight of that water times the vertical distance it will fall. That is, by reports I’ve seen, insufficient to generate more that a few percent of North America’s power needs. “That may be true on a continental basis,” Dr. Polagye agrees. “But on a regional basis, hydro can make an extremely significant contribution.”
Fascinating stuff. My sincere thanks to Brian for his time, and for the dedication that he and so many others make to such a wonderful cause.
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Hydrokinetics in the News
| October 11, 2009 | Posted by Craig Shields under Hydrokinetics |
Interest in the hydrokinetically-powered electric generator (HyPEG) is really heating up. I had numerous calls with potential investors late last week that show real promise.
Also, for the book on renewables that I hope to have published in January, I’ll be interviewing Dr. Brian L. Polagye, in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Washington. A colleague referred to him as “the nation’s leading researcher on hydrokinetic energy.” As I wrote back, I’m truly honored to have the good fortune for a conversation with a man of that stature; what a learning opportunity this will be.
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Hydrokinetically Powered Electric Generators
| September 25, 2009 | Posted by Craig Shields under Hydrokinetics |
Those of you who read my Three Brass Tacks article on hydrokinetics will remember the concept of the HyPEG (Hydrokinetically Powered Electric Generator). I’m thrilled to announce that we at HLK (Hydrokinetic Labs, LLC) made significant forward progress this week, where US Representative Geoff Davis (R-KY) recommended that the DoE take a hard look at funding and developing HyPEG technology.
It’s too early pop the champagne corks, but it’s certainly movement in the right direction.
