Title :
Capturing the energy of ocean waves
Author :
Wolfe, Douglas E.
Abstract :
This work proposes a concept for efficiently capturing the power of ocean waves. Many concepts have been pursued for over 100 years, but none have proven to be commercially viable for widespread operation. The waves offer a significant source of renewable energy and 60% of the world\´s population lives within 100 miles of a coastline. The concept proposed is designed to overcome the difficulties of destruction due to severe storms and bio fouling -the degraded operation, of precision components in a corrosive environment. The author has developed a working model, constructed of "low tech" building materials that demonstrated continuous turning of a large flywheel, moment of inertia of 250kg m2, for over one hour. The patented concept offers a means for rapidly establishing the energy capture mechanism and keeping the critical precision components protected from the ocean environment. Building on this success, a large-scale demonstration is proposed to assess performance of a commercially viable configuration.
Keywords :
building materials; corrosion protection; environmental degradation; flywheels; large-scale systems; ocean waves; power generation protection; renewable energy sources; wave power generation; bio fouling; corrosive environment; critical precision components protection; degraded operation; energy capture mechanism; large flywheels; large-scale demonstration; low tech building materials; ocean environment; ocean waves energy capturing; renewable energy; storms; Building materials; Degradation; Energy capture; Flywheels; Large-scale systems; Ocean waves; Protection; Renewable energy resources; Storms; Turning;
Conference_Titel :
Energy Conversion Engineering Conference, 2002. IECEC '02. 2002 37th Intersociety
Print_ISBN :
0-7803-7296-4
DOI :
10.1109/IECEC.2002.1392080