"Sitting on the Dock of the Bay:" New technology makes US renewable energy possible in five years
Posted: Saturday, December 06, 2008
by Walter Rhett
Charleston Perlo
Saturday mornings when I was young were for science, do wop harmonies, and Latin jazz . I'm listening to WGBO, a superb jazz stream that features older southern blues and do wop with a boogie woogie bounce and lots of jiving hooks on Saturdays. While I'm transported back to my youth, and the wonders of young love, the special meanings that the voices in the music made real, I am also reminded of the wonder and importance of science, especially with the planet and the economy at peril and 2 million jobs disappearing from the American economy in the last year, and 533,000 jobs lost last month.
So, from science, here's an incredible story of real hope for the planet and our future.
At the University of Michigan, scientists have borrowed a page from the Southern world view, and are observing and learning from nature in order to develop renewable, alternative energy from rivers and oceans that are a part of our southern home.
This new technology comes as scientist gleam knowledge and imitate how fish swim, particularly how they move in and around the waves or vortex caused by objects which interrupt the currents of moving water. Fish have adapted their movements to glide between vortexes in the water. In other words, they surf and ride the waves in the water, underneath the surface. The waves within the flowing currents are usually caused by other fish, but any object will disrupt the currents and create underwater eddies, or vortexes.
Michigan scientists have designed and built a machine called the VIVACE that bobs up and down in the vortex. The heart of the machine is a simple cylinder. It is pushed up, then down, by the vortexes above and below it. As it bobs up and down, the cylinder compresses a set of springs. The mechanical energy gained and released by the springs is converted to electricity. The technological break through of VIVACE is that it works in slow moving currents, as slow as 1.5 knots- below the speed of most rivers and ocean currents, well below the 5 knots required to turn turbines. So VIVACE can generate usable power from ocean and river currents.
According to VIVACE's developer, Michael Bernitsas, a marine engineer, an array of VIVACE converters the size of a running track, stacked two stories high-all under water-could power 100,000 houses!
And VIVACE does no harm to marine life or the marine environment.
Authorities expect a pilot project in the Detroit River within 18 months. The estimated cost of VIVACE generated electrical power? 5.5 cents a kilowatt hour (nuclear costs 4.6 cents, wind costs 6.9 cents, and solar currently costs 16 to 48 cents per kilowatt hour).
If harnessed, just 0.1 percent ( one tenth of one percent ) of the ocean's energy would supply sufficient energy for 15 billion people.
Copied from the technology fish use to swim, VIVACE provides clean, inexpensive energy-cheap enough for me to keep on listening to the harmony of soul that was the joy of the 40s and 50s, which is still fresh today and renews my flagging soul.
But reading about this amazing technology and how close it is to being widely available lifted my flagging spirits, too.
" I'm sitting here thinking, but my mind's a million miles away/
the blues are roaming, and they stopped at my front door
the blues are roaming, and they stopped at my front door . . ."
(Oh, VIVACE stands for Vortex Induced Vibration for Aquatic Clean Energy.) Here's a link for more information:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/11/081121125604.htm .
Check it out! Soon you will be able to sit on the dock of the bay, catch fish for dinner and have clean, renewable power from the same river to fire the stove. When you put the fish on, be sure to throw some music in.
" The clock is striking twelve,
And somebody's gotta go.
Gee, I'll miss you, baby
That's one thing I know."
Click to hear the 44th President's holiday greeting: http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid353515028/bctid1349141721
Here's a link to the Newseum's exhibit of 741 front pages of newspapers from 64 countries on 6 continents around the world, a historic record of Barack Obama's election. Click (or paste): http://www.newseum.org/todaysfrontpages/default_archive.asp?fpArchive=110508
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Top-level comments on this article: (8 total)'To be Southern is to put your faith in the unseen.' Great article, Walter.You are such a talented writer--I probably told you that already, but I must say it again.Wishing you the best.Sandra
Walter, Great article and very exciting to learn about about this new technology! I had a father who taught me that same world view you write about--up north in Iowa....Now, where's my fishing pole?
very interesting-just shows the master plan of nature's adaptations are still best.
hi walter,what an interesting and hopeful article. thank you for providing the info. could things be looking up? wouldn't that be nice.have a merry christmas if I don't talk to you beforehand,my best,sue
Great article Walter, I just hope their idea works and can do what they think now. That would be some great feat.
Could have done without the two links at the end of the article as they have absolutely nothing to do with the subject matter of the article.Happy Holidays, Michael, from the President-elect and from me! Good wishes are aoprropiate at any time at any place--and so is history! He is your President too.And renewable energy is a major part of the President-elect's energy plan, and one of the ways he intends to preserve or create 2.5 million jobs! Isse a very direct link>
I am not really interested in the topic which might have made me somewhat biased.But you have to admit the technology is cool!Catching a fish, and using power from the same river to fry it! That's cool.
My comment had nothing to do with personal political preference. No matter which side of the political fence you sit, I just didn't feel the links were relevant to the article. Appropriate links, in my humble opinion, would have been to other articles about turning water motion into energy. Beyond that, the subject matter is interesting.
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