The gentle swaying of kelp forests belies the immense hydraulic pressures they’ve evolved to endure. The waves that crash over them transfer huge amounts of energy — an average of 36kW/m with three-foot swells. Now, a green energy firm is banking on this sway to run arrays of Megawatt generators of the coast of Victoria. More »
We’ve mentioned ocean power stations a bit recently, and now here’s one with a rather different approach: It can store power for when its needed. Searaser is in prototype form at the moment, and it works by bobbing up and down as waves pass by. An underwater pump uses this motion to push water into a reservoir 160 feet uphill. And there it sits until it’s simply released to power a generator. Neat stuff, particularly when the inventors say a full-sized version can power about 470 homes all by itself. [The TImes via Dvice]
