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This Device Could Provide a Third of America's Power

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Re: This Device Could Provide a Third of America's Power

#22

The UK's Witt Energy device can be used in marine and wave power applications - and can harness kinetic motion in all six degrees - using pendulums. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11514839

Those devices are impressive and they probably work, but as the video correctly stated, the maintenance of those devices are the problem and makes them cost prohibitive. Typically, devices with moving parts have a shorter shelf-life, because of the hostile ocean environment.

Re: This Device Could Provide a Third of America's Power

#23
post #17
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Stopped reading Stopped caring after seeing that

Your right, trying to exploit in an entire ecosystem for the benefit of a single species is a great idea.

That's literally what every species on the planet is trying to do, as well as they can.

Re: This Device Could Provide a Third of America's Power

#24
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your right, trying to exploit in an entire ecosystem for the benefit of a single species is a great idea.

That's literally what every species on the planet is trying to do, as well as they can.

All species self-regulate. If you feel you're able to provide notable research countering this, please do; happy to admit I'm wrong.

https://www.google.com/search?q=species+self-regulation

Re: This Device Could Provide a Third of America's Power

#25
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's good things are getting efficient up to a point however those kind of savings are unsustainable and in the longterm our energy use will continue to grow exponentially, including for environmental management. Thus it doesn't make sense to research power sources that aren't potentially 100s of times greater than our current usage.

"For my future life of luxury I will have to find a lot of gold so I'm not gonna plant potatoes today." Boring, pointless potatoes.

That's a false analogy since farming potatoes is an existing technology.

Re: This Device Could Provide a Third of America's Power

#26

If we were to do this on a large scale, how would it impact the waves we are seeing? Might that impact coastal wildlife? Might it even impact currents and weather patterns?

Some of the impacts are covered here: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wave_power&sectio...

If done on the scale suggested in the article, it would be catastrophic; article infers that the whole ocean should be used as a source of engery, which is madness.

Re: This Device Could Provide a Third of America's Power

#27
David MacKay's "Sustainable Energy - without the hot air" [1] does a good job of putting energy sources like this in perspective. Wave energy is indeed challenged by issues with mechanical parts; however, the reality is that there isn't much wave energy their to begin with. As MacKay puts it, "sun makes wind and wind makes waves" [2]. Waves are just diluted sunshine. Sandia National Labs does a good job of putting this into perspective, assessing solar electricity with a theoretical potential of 89,000 TW and ocean wave with 34 TW [3].

We could try to make the case that, despite the small potential, wave power is convenient to extract. We do this for hydropower, for example. However, where there are waves, there is wind. On cost and reliability, I don't see wave power ever being able to beat out offshore wind.

1. http://www.withouthotair.com/

2. http://www.withouthotair.com/c12/page_73.shtml

3. http://www.sandia.gov/~jytsao/Solar%20FAQs.pdf

Re: This Device Could Provide a Third of America's Power

#28
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's literally what every species on the planet is trying to do, as well as they can.

All species self-regulate. If you feel you're able to provide notable research countering this, please do; happy to admit I'm wrong. https://www.google.com/search?q=species+self-regulation

All species self-regulate.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Matthew_Island#Mammals

Also really fun comic about this: http://www.stuartmcmillen.com/comics_en/st-matthew-island/

happy to admit I'm wrong.

There you go.

Now before you start blaming developed nations about their energy usage, it is good to review the data persented here: http://visualizingeconomics.com/blog/2007/12/09/comparing-po...

Re: This Device Could Provide a Third of America's Power

#29
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"For my future life of luxury I will have to find a lot of gold so I'm not gonna plant potatoes today." Boring, pointless potatoes.

That's a false analogy since farming potatoes is an existing technology.

You advocated forgoing research in a proven field for research in speculative fields. The analogy is about favoring prospecting over farming. In farming you can calculate an expected yield, in prospecting you don't know what you are going to find.

Re: This Device Could Provide a Third of America's Power

#30
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All species self-regulate. If you feel you're able to provide notable research countering this, please do; happy to admit I'm wrong. https://www.google.com/search?q=species+self-regulation

All species self-regulate. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Matthew_Island#Mammals Also really fun comic about this: http://www.stuartmcmillen.com/comics_en/st-matthew-island/ happy to admit I'm wrong. There you go. Now before you start blaming developed nations about their energy usage, it is good to review the data persented here: http://visualizingeconomics.com/blog/2007/12/09/comparing-po...

Here's an example of notable research, "Why most published research findings are false" - note that it's been cited over 3000 times: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cluster=15681017780418799...

In my opinion, the event you references is not notable research.

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