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WaveTork™: Optimized Ocean Wave Energy Converters

Benefits:

Benefits of powering our societies with ocean energy are far-reaching and easy to conclude, given the tremendous power and size of the resource. Whether the concerns are environmental, financial, or national security, everyone feels the impact of energy in everyday life. The desire for clean renewable energy across a diverse landscape, each region having its own renewable resource opportunity, is gaining momentum worldwide.

At a macro level, these are the drivers:

• Economics: End the offshore flow of billions of dollars to support our energy needs

• National Security: End our energy reliance on uncontrolled resources

• Environment: End carbon emissions and radioactive waste problems that will haunt our future generations

Challenges:

The principle design challenges to ocean wave energy conversion are:

• The size and flotation/mass requirements (amount of materials needed) to produce significant power are extreme

• The environment provides daunting challenges: saltwater is very corrosive, wave energy can be destructive, barnacles grow on almost everything below the waterline, UV intensities are high on the ocean, wind and storm survival is of major consideration, and maintenance of sea-based devices is difficult.

• Obtaining continuous power is a challenge—the periodic frequency action of waves does not match the steady-state demand of grid power

• Maximizing output over a range of sea-states is challenging

Answers:

We are in process of building and testing a range of prototypes covered under our provisional patent application. By January 2009 we will be optimizing one of these designs for extended testing and data collection. We are using commercial technology throughout the designs and are concentrating our efforts on minimizing the material costs given the environmental conditions as well as minimizing the energy conversions required to produce electrical power. We believe under $4/watt capacity is achievable initially on a commercial scale and ultimately that the technology will compete with on-shore wind. More information will be available about WaveTork™ once we have completed our non-provisional patent filing.
Are you responsible for developing renewable energy projects or recommending renewable energy technologies? Please contact us.
Do you offer potentially collaborative technologies such as undersea cabling solutions, corrosion-protection solutions, etc.? Please contact us.