Blog 8: Ocean Wave Energy

Wave power is a new alternate energy source beginning to attract a lot of people's attention. Within recent years, alternative energy sources are a big research all around the world gaining national attention from incorporations wills Google and Microsoft. A recently found type of energy is from waves. I was thinking of an energy source as one of these but didn't know of its existence until later researching it. I would have imagined a wall of sort placed on the beach and the power of the waves hitting the wall would generate heat. This was not the schematics of the generator at all. The overall scheme of a wave power generator is to inhabit the power of the current raising and lowering. The Generator would place a chamber at the edge of the water capturing air in the chamber. As the current goes in and out, the water in the chamber will higher and lower constantly throughout the day. This will cause the chamber's air to compress and decompress generating energy. There is another model to this which these tubes are placed out of the shore and anchored to the ground. With them anchored to the bottom, when waves come, the water will raise putting pressure against the tubes to rise as well. This pressure against them rising is what is going to be used as the energy harnessed. The energy will then be converted to electricity through generators and carried through cables running across the water to the power supply. I believe I like the second architecture better. I feel that with the second build, it can harness the energy more efficiently and will generate more as well. The only flaw I see with this model is the lack of having to run cables. Because you have to run cables, this means that the ships coming in and out would have to watch out for them and make sure not to run over them. Another flaw is the height of the water. As the day passes, I believe every four hours the tide changes from coming in to going out. So with the water being lower, the "bobbers" would have to self-adjust to the new height of the water. Although I am fond of this new way of generating energy, I still feel it is in its prototype age and needs to be perfected before mass released worldwide. Wind farming was one day in its prototype age and years later became one of the best generators of energy alongside with solar panels. Hopefully one day, we can perfect this model and be able to generate energy through all the elements as we have with wind and water.

http://www.boem.gov/Renewable-Energy-Program/Renewable-Energy-Guide/Ocean-Wave-Energy.aspx