Concept in Hydrokinetics
I awakened this morning to an interesting question in my inbox from frequent commenter and 2GreenEnergy supporter Brain McGowan, who asked: What’s your take on this hydrokinetic device?
Coincidentally, a colleague of mine showed me an extremely similar device about six months ago and wanted my opinion, as a mutual friend was considering a significant investment in the company that was developing the technology. When I asked for test results I got a six-minute video showing that the auger does spin (as if that were in question), but without a single number in terms of power output given a certain amount of power input delivered by a certain number of square feet of incident water moving at a certain velocity. The video also (falsely) implied that its technology was endorsed by the University of Manitoba. The whole thing was clearly a scam.
When you think about this, the design itself doesn’t even make sense, when you look at the edge of the device on which the water is incident. The amount of power transferred from the water to the device is going to be very small in comparison to other hydro concepts.
If you go to the investor’s page and look at the project that involves run-of-river hydrokinetics in Brazil, the underlying technology is extremely straightforward, and it’s been around (with a few improvements) for almost a century. It’s the same concept that is deployed in virtually every other such project around the world of which I’m aware. It simply diverts a certain fraction of the water out of the river in a way that no aquatic life could possibly be harmed, runs it past a standard turbine, and then immediately returns it to the river.
If you speak with the Eco-Auger people, and I hope you do, please get some verifiable test results in terms of the parameters above, and ask them for some documentation on the awards they’ve ostensibly won. Also, ask yourself why they need to raise money from investors if this thing works as advertised. Why not just sell it to hydro developers?
