http://www.greencarcongress.com/2008/07/simple-new-ener.html?cid=121077536
http://anacond.neuf.fr/anaconda.pdf
Wave energy converters are always rather bizarre machines that attempt to take intermittent wave energy and produce steady electricity. This one tries to simplify it design and reduce manufacturing cost by being made mostly of rubber. Waves move along a large long rubber tube filled with water, squeezing the water along that tube producing pressure waves, every negative pressure wave sucks in sea water at the front of the tube and pressurizes the tube, to relieve the built up water pressure, water is continuously expelled at the back of the tube after first passing through a turbine which spins a generator. A 7m (23ft) wide tube 150m (500ft) long tube would produces ~1MW of power on average sea wave conditions. Claimed price of the devices is1/2-1/3 less then the nearest competitor wave energy converter technology but still brings it to twice the cost of coal. I worry the price of the device is also dependent on rubber costs because this thing uses alot of it, its rear end wall thickness would be 15cm (6in) thick!
http://anacond.neuf.fr/anaconda.pdf
Wave energy converters are always rather bizarre machines that attempt to take intermittent wave energy and produce steady electricity. This one tries to simplify it design and reduce manufacturing cost by being made mostly of rubber. Waves move along a large long rubber tube filled with water, squeezing the water along that tube producing pressure waves, every negative pressure wave sucks in sea water at the front of the tube and pressurizes the tube, to relieve the built up water pressure, water is continuously expelled at the back of the tube after first passing through a turbine which spins a generator. A 7m (23ft) wide tube 150m (500ft) long tube would produces ~1MW of power on average sea wave conditions. Claimed price of the devices is1/2-1/3 less then the nearest competitor wave energy converter technology but still brings it to twice the cost of coal. I worry the price of the device is also dependent on rubber costs because this thing uses alot of it, its rear end wall thickness would be 15cm (6in) thick!