Comments on: Renewable Energy From Slow Water Currents

By: ankita

ankita — Sat, 23 Apr 2011 17:55:41 +0000

How can i make a working model of it as a college project?

By: J.H.

J.H. — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 21:15:32 +0000

To L Maniot:

People live in Nebraska. Lot’s of people do, the reason not many live there is primarily because of the Ogallala Water basin, the largest underground water resource in the world, which we currently use for irrigation. The reason not a lot of people live in Nebraska, is because we FARM there. It takes up a lot of land, thousands of acres to feed our population and even other places in the world.

You’re still right about one thing, it does suck to live in the middle of nowhere, but it will only be the middle of nowhere till more people move out there. Cities grow, some of the smallest ones like Las Vegas, a desert town in the middle of nowhere, it is a large city now, only because it has gambling. Who knows? Maybe Bismarck will be the capital of the free world someday?

By: Edward Austin

Edward Austin — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 12:12:32 +0000

Sorry Leo No bubbles bursted. You may be unaware (living in Texas) There just happens to be an Ocean nearby (Think desalinization).

Needless to say it is already happening. “Earlier this month, Renew Blue, a subsidiary of the Minneapolis-based Independent Natural Resources, was granted the first-ever state off-shore wave energy lease from the Texas General Land Office. On Thursday, Renew Blue announced that it has licensed its technology to Texas Natural Resources and that they will partner to develop an off-shore facility for 18 Seadog pumps that will both produce power and desalinate seawater for drinking.”

http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-10376558-54.html

Might not be in our lifetime But for sure IF the human race Sticks around long enuff Dreams may become a reality. Too many times people say things are too expensive only because they may not be scalable enough to create a sizable return for large corporations. While on an individual level they become practical.

Really is too bad that almost all things are relegated to for profit (monetary) enterprise. Although there is ALWAYS HOPE. When people like Nikola Tesla and Jonas Salk still Exist. Neither made a fortune for themselves instead many people would not even be here if it were not for them.

It is no longer good enough to think Outside the BOX. What is needed I think is to think in another dimension. One where Profit money and greed do not exist. Only humanitarian ventures allowed.

the ed council

By: Leo Sapphire

Leo Sapphire — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 18:53:37 +0000

I hate to burst anyone’s bubble here, but having lived in Texas for a long number of years I can safely say that most of Texas is semi-arid desert. All of that open land you see is mostly dead. The topsoil over most of it is only 3 inches deep, with hundreds of feet of limestone under it. Lots of mesquite trees and brush, but the only reason they can survive is that they can store massive amounts of water if it actually does rain. You could put a house up, but be prepared to drill a well through solid rock to between 475 to 800 feet, and hope you have good water when you find it.

If you don’t build in the Edwards aquifer zone in south TX, don’t count on any water at all, and the bad water line in the aquifer is less than 500 feet down if memory serves. Nearly all of the places where people can safely live on this planet and also some less than desirable ones too, are jammed full of people. Remember, it is not enough to have room for people to live, you have to have room to grow food, and that takes up far more room than the number of people. There is very little agriculture can do to make more food. We take thousands of acres more every day to build on and most of that used to be cropland.

Millions are starving in some parts of the world because they destroyed all their resources just to try to stay alive. We will have a population crash at some point, because electric can’t replace all the artificial chemicals we use from oil. Without artificial crop supports there is only enough resources available for maybe 1.5 billion people, with the growing space available today. I don’t count on there being enough cropland to feed even that many people at some point down the road. Just because someone makes a prediction that misses its date, don’t count on it not smacking you upside the head later. Don’t assume it won’t happen just because it didn’t yet, because human greed and ignorance is unlimited, unlike our resources.

By: Population Bomb alarmist

Population Bomb alarmist — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 06:13:34 +0000

@Daniel and @Saunders
Puh-lease. It sounds like you’ve been reading Paul R. Ehrlich’s book, The Population Bomb, from 1968. It’s prediction of over-consumption and mass starvation in the 70’s and 80’s was wrong 40 years ago, and it remains so. Get over it. This article is about a technology that will hopefully come to fruition and meet a part of our energy needs; no need to go off on an overpopulation tangent.

By: Mad Hatter

Mad Hatter — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 03:19:12 +0000

Seems like this was inspired directly from Vicktor Schauberger. We need more of his work to be taken seriously, and it seems this professor has… in some ways.

By: edward austin

edward austin — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 11:57:41 +0000

Instead of a grandiose large scale application it would seem to me that smaller would be better, IE used in canals etc with slow tidal current.

Large scale would require a much more sophisticated dampening – structure maintenance system I believe.

if it were possible for A system that could produce even 500 – 1000 watts this could seriously augment solar – wind etc in a home system. Simply because the wind does not always blow the sun does not always shine yet tides wait fo no man and is a constant.

By: Saunders

Saunders — Sun, 10 May 2009 17:26:09 +0000

@L Maniot
Overpopulation refers to the Earth’s capability for supporting human life, not space. Already we are reaching the sustainable levels. If we look at land area, the earth could very easily support hundreds of billions of people, however where would we grow food? How would we rotate crops? It would be nice to move everyone into a contained area but it just is not feasible.

By: PRATUL

PRATUL — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 05:36:39 +0000

Very good tech. indeed, but seems as if the fixed cost might go high. there is a vast source of slow moving water areas, and if this tech is a success, definitely a huge amount of deficit can be handled.

By: L Maniot

L Maniot — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 22:12:25 +0000

Congratulations on the invention. I hope to see it out in the world soon.

But to what “Daniel” said. Im sorry sir but over population is not a fact it is a mere estimate. If you really took the time to think about it there is 24,000,000,000(24 billion) sq. feet in Jacksonville, Florida alone. If you think about that and the fact that the average person takes up about 4 feet each then you would see that everyone in the world could fit into Florida!! (not comfortably, but they would fit) In truth the only reason that the earth would seem overpopulated is because all the nice places to live is were everyone moves… (Hawaii, New York, Tokyo, Sydney, Paris, San Fransico) And have you ever driven across Texas or Montana or even Nebraska? There is so much land out there its not even funny. And the only reason people aren’t there is because they want to live else where.

By: D Clark

D Clark — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 05:56:35 +0000

Finally, my thought is that you could go further of shore and tap into the larger oceanic currents like the gulf stream in the Atlanic etc. This has been on my mind for months and finally someone is on the right track as your system seems to be very fish friendly. If your estimate of 15 million is only the energy washing ashore think of the potential in the larger oceans, they are all moving.

Dale

By: Rob

Rob — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 04:55:58 +0000

@deepthi – I agree with you that the installation costs would be very high, but the initial investment in all new forms of energy are high. In my humble opinion, the long-term benefits greatly outweigh the short-term costs.

By: Daniel

Daniel — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 06:58:29 +0000

This sounds like another good idea if it can be realized in a financially feasible way. One part of the article that worries me is the mention making enough power for 15 billion people. Overpopulation is the root cause for every environmental issue we face today. We, as a species, should create more renewable energy resources and less people.

Daniel G.
Norman Oklahoma, USA

By: Ravi Soparkar

Ravi Soparkar — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 11:50:07 +0000

Dear Prof. Michael Bernitsas,

Congratulations for inventing amazing technology to generate energy from slow moving water mass.

I am sure this will change many equations in energy generation in near future.

I would love to receive more info. and license to go for this technology in India for benefit of rural population.

Ravi Soparkar, Pune, India
renewableenergy[AT]in.com

By: deepthi naidu

deepthi naidu — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 11:30:31 +0000

This is really nice article which i have read these days…but how about the maintenance of this in the sense as it is marine and it seems the installation cost?? to b high