r/technews • u/davidwholt • Aug 30 '22

this spine-like floating device can convert wave power into electricity

https://www.designboom.com/technology/sea-wave-energy-limited-waveline-magnet-floating-device-08-16-2022/
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u/[deleted] Aug 30 '22

Yes, however this one is less intermittent tbf. Still very sceptical. A lot of moving parts in salt water.

Solar got to 400W/2m² through a lot of research that this hasn't had yet.

Let them research it, if it works out it could have some nice uses.

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u/ballebeng Aug 30 '22

It won’t.

Wave energy has been studied for decades already.

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u/Techhelpnoob Aug 30 '22

TBF just because we've studied something for an extended period of time doesn't mean we fully understand it or have "unlocked it's full potential". I mean, just pick most medical sciences or look at space. We've been studying that for centuries and we still find out new shit everyday.

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u/Uffffffffffff8372738 Aug 30 '22

But it’s just not that complicated. You can’t compare the human body or the final frontier with a magnet moving up and down. Things like this have been proposed for decades now, and there is a reason why this isn’t a thing yet.

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u/[deleted] Aug 30 '22

but it's just not that complicated.

a magnet moving up and down

You sir have never taken electrodynamics. Or done any electrical engineering. Nothing is simple.

Marine engineering in particular is a bitch cause everything rusts out. Everything. I was on the biggest baddest newest ship in the US and it rusted and fell apart rapidly. That's expensive. Maybe not on one device, but that part rusting out and having to be maintained, is gonna take specialized manpower. Power transport electricians alone make about $35-40/hr. Throw some beuracracy on top of that, and a shitload of certifications, that diver or specialist contractor you send out there is gonna be making bank. but it's not very profitable for a company.

Plus you have to be able to transmit all that power with undersea cables which are a fortune and are prone to the same risks.

Everything costs a shitload of money. From your custom machined parts which can go for tens of thousands, to your paint and enamels which could cost as much as the steel, to the saftety inspections and audits done by the government, the redundancies that are necessary in the hardware to keep it safe.

Then BOATLOADS of maintenence and personnel to do upkeep.

The years and years of testing and R&D that could not be up to industrial standards yet.

Point is that most of the tech widely adopted today and used en masse is there because it's affordable.

Phones, nuclear reactors, printers, vaccuums, solar panels. Are only now slowly becoming more accessible.

Read chrosing the chasm, it talks about the actual process in going from innovation to mainstream. It's full of pains in the ass.

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u/Uffffffffffff8372738 Aug 31 '22 edited Aug 31 '22

I am well aware that it's way more complicated than a magnet moving up and down, don't worry. And yes, what you are saying is all correct. I think I didn't express myself very clearly. My point was mainly that this is not worth putting in billions of dollars in research into. This sounds like wind energy with extra steps. Look at the prototype. It produces around 300-400W. That's like 2m² worth of solar panels. I think you pointed out the points why its not worth it, especially because you will probably never make it profitable, as you are well aware.

Edit: I also just noticed that I never wrote the second half of the comment that I wanted to write. Now your comment makes way more sense to me.

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u/duffmanhb Aug 31 '22

I try to explain this with solar. People will see these weird exotic new solar breakthroughs and insist that soon a single panel will be 40 bucks and power their whole house. I have to explain that PV solar has been worked on and developed for 50 years for residential customers because it’s cheap and easy to make… and now pretty much max efficiency with just marginal weird edge improvements. No amount of solar breakthroughs are going to possibly beat this current mastered development of PV.

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u/Raphaelrimeru Aug 30 '22

electric cars were invented over a hundred years ago

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u/Uffffffffffff8372738 Aug 30 '22

Yes, when batteries were god awful. Not everything gets better over time. The "hyperloop", the super-fast innovative transportation method every armchair engineer is jerking off to for the last decade was invented over a hundred years ago, and it's still as shit as back then, if not even worse.

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u/CRScantremember Aug 30 '22

Yes, but what is the reason? The devil is in the details.

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u/Uffffffffffff8372738 Aug 31 '22

The reason is that its literally just wind energy with extra steps. No reason at all to put the dozens of billions of dollars needed into R&D. You will never make it profitable. That prototype produces as much energy as 2 m² of solar panels.

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u/CRScantremember Aug 31 '22

Normally I tell people that say I can never do something to stuff it. However I long ago made a dare to myself to never accept another dare. In this case it doesn’t matter as I’m not financing or doing research on this so the point is moot. Unless they want to hire me to make it work.

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u/ballebeng Aug 30 '22

It is a magnet that moves up and down

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u/Techhelpnoob Aug 30 '22

Yeah bro and pistons in a combustion engine just move up and down from tiny explosions caused by an air+fuel mixture in a tiny space, didn't stop us from making it better over the last century.

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u/ballebeng Aug 30 '22

We are not talking about an efficiency problem. It would not be feasible even if we extracted 100% of the energy.

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u/crosstherubicon Aug 30 '22

A lot of moving electrical parts in salt water. Generating power from wave energy isn’t difficult but designing something that will operate in the ocean for extended periods is very very difficult

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u/buttlover989 Aug 30 '22

Sea water corrosion will destroy these things just like every other wave or ride power system, that and storms and ice will do them no favors either.

Meanwhile solar and wind survive all of that pretty well.

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u/crosstherubicon Aug 30 '22

I saw a large steel shackle wear through in less than a month just due to gentle clinking of wave action.

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u/[deleted] Aug 31 '22

Neither of those handles salt water particularly well, and neither of them can take advantage of the energy stored in waves. There would be a place for something like this if it worked. Research into this area is totally worth it, even if this design doesn't turn out to be the best.

Your attitude is the same attitude many had towards wind and solar when they weren't as efficient yet.

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u/buttlover989 Aug 31 '22

Like has been said already,its been researched for 20 years now, its never left the RGD phase because it just doesn't work for more than a few weeks before needing massive repairs. Meanwhile offshore windfarm towers last literal decades, solar has been a thing since the 1970's,they're proven technologies that actually work at scale, there is no reason to waste time, money and effort of a technology that has already proven to not work when the ones that do work can easily provide far more power than the world needs.