By Robert Bradley Jr.
“Too many moving parts in a corrosive environment, requiring too much routine maintenance of large moving components. This is wildly unrealistic, fails the KISS Principle!” ( – Ed Thiel)
“[Stephen] Salter invented the ‘duck’ [system that converts into electricity some of the natural energy contained in waves] in 1974, wave energy has been just round the corner ever since. Tell me when and if it ever happens.” ( – Chris Wagstaffe)
A recent exchange on social media about the prospects of marine (aka tidal or wave) electricity brought some reality into energy magical thinking, the belief that what is technologically possible is a “green” solution to thermal power generation. Either now or about to be ….
An Optimistic Take
Russ Bates, founder of NXTGEN Clean Energy, excitedly announced: “Another step towards a sustainable future and another blow to #fossilfuels!” He continued:
The Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change has found that #waveenergy converters could harvest 29,500 terawatt-hours of renewable electricity from the ocean every year. In the US alone, the technically recoverable amount of wave power has been estimated at 1,170 TWh, which is about 30% of the nation’s annual electricity consumption. This is great news for coastal communities, including #military facilities, as additional #cleanenergy solutions.
Bates’s optimism was based on an article in CleanTechnica, “Wave Energy is (Really, Finally) Coming for Your Fossil Fuels,” which , however, admitted to prior failure in marine power:
If you’re guessing that a gigantic €9 million wave energy project under the wing of the firm Pelamis was the major disappointment, it sure was. In September of 2008 Pleamis launched an ambitious plan to float 25 wave energy converters into the Atlantic Ocean off the northern coast of Portugal, at Aguçadoura in the Porto district. The project started with the installation of three converters, and that’s where it ended. By December of 2008 all three devices were hauled into port after they sprouted leaks. The whole project ran out of funding in 2009, and Pelamis itself was shuttered in 2014.
BUT, a new generation of wave technology is ready for deployment! (it is always … always … coming)
Criticisms Float In
LinkedIn is populated by on-the-spot experts working in the different energy industries. So criticisms quickly followed. Stated Doug Houseman:
“I have worked on more than 20 wave power projects. Here are the issues to overcome to be successful:
1) the materials need to be immune to corrosion, including from sea water, bird poop, and seals.
2) mechanisms need to be immune to barnacles, sea weed and small sea life.
3) the systems need to not anger fisherman and be immune from drift nets and other fishing gear.
4) The system needs to work with just the force of gravity.
5) The system needs to make power from sea state one to sea state six, and survive sea state six with no damage
6) floating logs and other floating debris needs to not damage the system.
7) The system needs minimal cost for monitoring and communications, but it needs to have some monitoring
8) It needs to be clear of shipping channels and highly visible to any boats at sea.
9) It cannot leak any fluids, nor can it flake off toxic metals.
10) it needs to not interfere with swimming or other activities (surfing), nor can it be seen from the shore.
If you can solve these problems and have the system have a life of at least 20 years, you have a chance of making money with it.”
Added Thomas Marihart:
The bird poop alone is a major issue just for other technologies like floating solar. One of the last posts I recall on LinkedIn showcasing floating solar had a hard time getting a picture of the panels without any bird poop. I wonder what the solar output degradation is per year simply because of bird poop? Nature has a funny way of abusing anything artificial imposed on its environment.
The more complex and exotic these technologies get to make renewable energy, the more expensive they become, and the more they jump the proverbial shark. Green energy proponents seem to think that ‘happy days’ are just around the corner, but there is still a lot of work to do just to keep energy costs down and the lights on.
Engineer Joe Steinke, drawing from this article, considered economics and payback:
Until numbers are posted on the upfront CAPEX, operational maintenance, and capacity factors to calculate MWh, an accurate comparison can’t be made. Technologies with posted information like the “Blowhole” operated at a 20% capacity factor, cost millions, and produce small amounts of electricity (40 kw average) for a cost of $12 million. At a sell price of $0.25/kwh, it’s only 136 years to pay off the CAPEX at zero interest and O&M. Shore based system will take a km to produce 1MW with massive armoring, structure, and maintenance budgets.
Chris Bright, electrical system specialist living in Nottingham, England, added to Houseman (above) with gusto:
Wave power remains uncompetitive with other sources of power. The main reasons are:
1. The cost of building and maintaining devices that can withstand the full fury of storms.
2. Corrosion and bio-fouling.
3. The difficulty of converting the slow frequency low amplitude oscillatory motion to the high rotational speeds necessary to generate electricity, that being the most suitable vector for transmission ashore and beyond.Possibly, the economics could be improved by combining wave power with coastal erosion defence, where the costs of the wave power devices could be defrayed by savings in conventional defences.
Anyone wishing to develop wave power should study the findings of R&D in the UK and Ireland. That would avoid much futile work.
We enjoy some of the better wave resource in the world. We have studied wave power since the Yom Kippur Arab-Israeli war in 1973 …. Wave power devices developed at that time included the Salter “nodding duck”, the oscillating water column, and the Cockerell contouring raft.
In simpler terms? Ed Thiel commented:
Too many moving parts in a corrosive environment, requiring too much routine maintenance of large moving components. This is wildly unrealistic, fails the KISS Principle!
Enough, another dead horse. But to the magical thinkers there is always hope. “Every technology will have some role in energy transition,” stated Mansoor Khan. “Considering the urgency to transition, newer technologies will need support to bring them to project deployment stage.” And Russ Bates thanked him.
One need look no further than Aladdin to find the best source of energy and means of transportation.
A problem, since Aladdin’s Genie only grants three wishes and Greenies need many more than that. Some random examples:
Right and the obvious flaw might be – wish one, give me 10 more wishes. Or are we still on magical thinking where 1 wish solves every green problem, wish 2 makes him rich and wish 3 gives him long life and happiness?
In the old Disney movie: “Darby O’Gill and the Little People,” if you made four wishes you’d lose the other three.
According to the Twilight Zone genie, no wishing for more wishes. Strictly VERBOTEN! Settled.
As far as I know, magic carpets run forever. There’s debate whether genies are abiotic.
Yeah. Robin Williams was better though.
The question that wasn’t asked: Why even do it at all??
Because it’s there.
Because it can bag massive government cash handouts.
Because, like everything else in the climate crusade, failure earns promotion, power, money, recognition, and your name on the front page of the New York Times.
Note: Intended as humor/sarcasm, both of which are difficult concepts.
Right. Then do it on your own dime until you can prove it’s viable and affordable. Then we can talk about government subsidies.
ZPMs are the way to go.
As a way to mine peoples’ pockets, wave power is just as good as wind or solar.
Better, when wave power sinks without trace, it REALLY does!
I think there is a fairly large ‘cottage industry’ of speculative tech (software or hardware – doesn’t matter really since it’s all essentially vapourware) looking for angel investors – nice, cushy research job, with only one customer to please – the deep-pocket investors hoping to get in on the “next big thing” – or worse – trying to “save the planet!”
There is another form of ocean energy harvesting called “OTEC,” Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion.” It uses the differences in temperature between the sunwarmed upper layers of the seas and the cooler layers at the depths. It can be in open or closed cycles.
OTEC was being seriously studied in the late 70’s to early 80’s as a solution to the
“energy crisis”. Are there any such devices in use today? Don’t think so. They suffered from the same litany of problems that plague the mechanical wave systems. Same problems, different crisis. It seems all of these marginal technologies are just waiting for the right crisis.
My impression is that OTEC suffers from additional problems. Even in a place like Hawaii where the drop off from land to deep ocean is quite abrupt, you’d need a LOOOONG pipe with fantastically good insulation to get large volumes of cold bottom water up to the surface without having it warm up on the way up. And even then, you’d need a way to convert a relatively small temperature difference to usable amounts of power. (And if you can do the latter, why not just take two lakes, insulate one from the sun, don’t insulate the other, and generate power from the temperature difference. That’d likely be seasonal. But it’d be much easier to maintain.)
I don’t think any proposed OTEC project ever gets past even the most cursory engineering analysis.
How long (years) did it take from the first wood fueled steam engines to the first mature nuclear power plant (also steam turbine technology)?
And we think a new, novel technology can do the same in 1% of the time?
I’ve already had a negative experience with wave power, and, since I am not a slow learner, want no part of it. Salmon fishing on a charter out of Winchester Bay, Oregon, great breakfast mixed with wave power equals projectile vomiting. Forgetaboutit.
Stay in the river … just as many salmon.
I’m a believer in staying on terra firma; the more firmer, the less terror!
…and then there’s the dolphins to think of.
There were some similar schemes using such devices off the west coast of Scotland, quite some years ago now. And that was before we got the full-on global warming spiel.
The BBC were all over it like a tramp on chips. The projects all die the quiet death of course, but that doesn’t stop the next crazy green idea gaining traction. We used to be able to smile and laugh-off such small scale childish and cheap excursions of the imagination. That is, until they they started to seriously dig their claws into the nation’s power generation facilities. It’s not funny any more.
“It’s not funny any more.”
That is an excellent way to put it!
thank you for that! been giving a chap on X heaps over running claims about all sorts of supposed greenwonder scams. and one just a few days ago was claims of a scots island and wave energy. either its OLD or some poor fools fell for it again?
If we all had bobble-heads on the dashboards of our ICE vehicles, and if we tie the head movements to piezoelectric transducers, the millions of cars on the roads of America COULD produce enormous amounts of electricity.
I like it!
The energy conversion was solved, if instead of a free floating device you incorporate a snap action, so the float resists movement then moves suddenly, you get a concentrated burst of mechanical energy which can be converted to electricity.
its still way too expensive to be practical. And it would have to be hauled in and scraped at least every two years, just like boats which sit in the water all the time.
Heck, my Hunter 35.5’ wing keeled big sailboat ‘Windsong’ was on Lake Michigan (fresh water), with new anti fouling paint each spring before put in. Still had to snorkel dive and scrape algae off the whole bottom midsummer if I wanted it to perform. Which I did.
Windsong had a reaching hull speed of 7.2 knots at medium breeze with optimal sail trim, or 7.3 downwind with spinnaker up and weight a bit forward to lift the transom water line. Mathematically about the best possible. Instrumented with all the go fast extra instruments. Taught my then young two teenage kids a lot of sailing fine points with that boat. Stuff like optimal luff to leach visual sail trim in three dimensions using: downhaul, outhaul, boom vang. (Was once my college sailing team co-captain. We won the US big boat college Championship at Annapolis (only Navy has enough matched Ludders yawls to pull that off), and took second that same year in the collegiate ‘dinghy’ national championships to USC. Long story, we won the tournament but lost on a USC one race protest of what IN my opinion was a legal maneuver. Judges just could not stand us winning both.)
Rud you never cease to amaze!
Rud I know what you are talking about and I’m impressed! My son (genes?) drives a J70 in the Worlds and comes about half way up. ‘Why’ I ask ‘are the top dozen so much better?” “They are half a second quicker, trim better, they are just better”
Thought a little research was in order. EIA has a section on wave generated electricity. They fancifully call it ‘hydrokinetic generation’ and have some pretty pictures, including failed Pelamis. Despite their prose optimism, the EIA page was last updated two years ago. No LCOE since there is as yet no successful example from which to guesstimate.
EIA does give a helpful page redirect to a DoE ‘hydrokinetic generation’ project database that has useful sub select tools. Using them we learn that DoE knows of 218 different ‘hydrokinetic generation’ projects around the world. 116 are inactive—meaning they already failed. Pelamis was notable amongst those—was going to deploy nine and actually deployed three ‘hydrokinetic generators’ before failing. Of the 102 still trying, 65 are a single device and 6 are just sub pilot scale prototypes.
The realities of salt water corrosion, barnacles, storms, and low capacity factors collide with yet another green fantasy.
I recall seeing such things in Popular Mechanix magazine back in the 70s, many schemes for harvesting FREE ENERGY from wind, water and sun. I thought they would all work, but now older and wiser I know they do not.
Thanks Rud. Like you and the EIA, I’ve seen literally hundreds of wave power projects announced. And every few years, I’ve looked for one actually in operation in order to get a feel for efficiency and life cycle costs. Hard to believe that none actually succeed. But if the EIA can’t find a few, I have to believe that’s the case.
Fire up all fossil fuel and nuclear generators, build new fossil fuel and nuclear generators remove all wind and solar from the grid and upgrade the grid.
It all seems so simple when you put it like that. The Greenies’ll never go for it – they like their science way too simple and power generation unfeasably complicated!
Doug Houseman: “1) the materials need to be immune to corrosion, including from sea water, bird poop, and seals.”
Several members of Seal Team 6 study the arrangement of a wave power generator before commencing their seaborne attack:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34j6TxSSXLU
What’s about that ?
A tidal turbine described as the “most powerful” in the world has started generating energy off Orkney.
Ok, a promtion video and text…
ah THATS the one was on X except stated as a done deal saving so much yadda yadda.
It is of course very heavily subsidised, including having secured a large wodge from the EU before Brexit took effect in exchange for using a lot of German built kit.
The practicalities are that, far from producing the “clean power” the video advertises, its power output is very dirty – flickery, varying phase angles etc. That means that most of the output is diverted into a set of vanadium flow batteries that can tolerate the poor power quality, and produce a rectified output that is grid acceptable. In fact, a tranche also goes to electrolysis for hydrogen production though noone is saying much about how the electrolysers cope with the poor power input quality. They are in effect another smoothing battery. Given the cost of the scheme, the cost of the hydrogen is truly eye-watering if anyone bothers to calculate it.
The poor power quality arises because of the interaction of surface waves and the shear profile of tidal currents that mean that flow at the bottom of the turbine swept area is much less than at the top. This sets up varying output and mechanical stresses on the blades and hub that speed wear of the system. It also limits the practical size of turbines: attempts to build larger ones have resulted in rapid mechanical breakdown because of the increased stresses.
Government is still throwing money at these projects: a guaranteed price of over £350/MWh in today’s money in the forthcoming AR6 CFD auction. It’s toys for the boys, not a serious contender as a source of electricity.
Sigh. Starting with a dilute/diffuse energy source and seeking to concentrate it in order to deliver meaningful quantities of electrical power is doomed to failure.
Didn’t we try this with wind and solar and find the results to be expensive and unreliable?
Ya, but this time they are going to back it up with a Fusion Plan and make it work like magic.
I recall this being hot in the 1970’s during the “Energy Crisis” LOL
Remember the window blind looking things that were supposed to catch tidal energy?
Sorry. Off Topic. I Didn’t want to wait for the next Open Thread.
New, roughly 2.4 million year, “Milankovitch cycle” (not referred to as that in the paper) affecting climate due to a resonance with Mars: Mars Seems to Affect Earth’s Oceans Every 2.4 Million Years 2024-03-14 https://youtu.be/DZnN2mPkoT8?t=4 Post points out there is probably no shutdown of ocean circulation.: “Oceans are very resilient, and don’t actually change currents that frequently.”
Yes, I never really imagined Neptune reading the latest IPCC report to get instructions on what he was supposed to do next.
Thinking things through thoroughly seems to be “mission impossible” for leftists.
Is this an issue with evolution of our species?
Did their brains never reach and breach the threshold of “rationality”?
While wave power appears dead in the water, tide power seems much more promising with the oldest in France dating from the mid 60s still going strong, which shows it can be done. Except, the silting of the estuary is a problem and “In spite of the high development cost of the project, the costs have now been recovered in 20 years, and electricity production costs are lower than that of nuclear power generation (1.8 ¢/kWh versus 2.5 ¢/kWh for nuclear). However, the capacity factor of the plant is 28%, lower than 85–90% for nuclear power.” (Wikipedia)
.
Sth Korea has the only other large scale tide power from 2011, both around 240MW making up the majority of world wide tide power. The total is only just shy of 520mW meaning the others are tiny.
There are proposed plants of seriously large outputs of 24,000 & 89,000MW in Russia, but it’s a long way from a proposal to reality.
Good sites for tidal power are few and far between. Not every proposed site will pass even a cursory view – silting and environmental changes are two problems, generating enough power to be worthwhile outside of peak season another.
” Considering the urgency to transition, ”
There is the big lie. Sometime in the future there may be a transition to something as yet unknown. There is no urgency.
I started my apprenticeship in 1962 with the (U.K.) Central Electricity Generating Board and I remember being shown a film of a wave generator.
An old idea with little potential or it would have been developed by now. Because it is possible to trap some energy does not mean it is viable, sensible or economic.
So why doesn’t anyone build these things put of UHMW and passivated, non-magnetic, stainless steel? Rotationally molded black UHMW with walls inches thick for the parts that need to float, be non-stick to everything, and highly resistant to impact damage. Passivated, non-magnetic, stainless steel for the parts that have to be metal.
Nothing sticks to UHMW aside from some very specialized, exotic adhesives designed to bond to its non-polar surface. I doubt barnacles and seaweed have anything like that.
The design of a system intended to survive a super harsh environment like the ocean cannot rely on high precision fitment between its parts. I have in mind a very simple design for a wave power generator built mainly of these two materials.
They would get nicked.
I rarely have resistance to research-level projects as long as there is an open means to audit the actual costs and progress and project them forward realistically. Such open research projects help to quickly debunk the BS artists and snake-oil salesmen.
What I will always oppose are huge 5-and-10-year plans of huge scale dreamed-up by a handful of politicians, “experts” in fields with no proven expertise, and billionaires aiming to harvest a few additional billions from taxpayers who can’t afford to bankroll another half-baked scheme.
I always love it when proponents of this type of lunacy claim that this new whatever technology will replace fossil fuels when said technology is fully dependent on fossil fuel powered machinery from the mining of needed minerals through to the ultimate decommissioning and disposal. Yet, as Thomas Sowell says “It is usually futile to try to talk facts and analysis to people who are enjoying a sense of moral superiority in their ignorance.”
The real wave power is the ability to wave off annoying facts in favour of magical thinking that makes all progressive policy look exactly like the work of gods. Once you think you can repeal the laws of nature you will never be saddled with the need to think carefully about your decisions ever again. Unfortunately this life of bliss will be very short.
So another old, failed idea is pulled out of the files and is flamed (rightly).
When will the Greens wake up and start pushing the perpetual motion machine that Tommy (Music Man) had almost perfected?
Perpetual motion generator. No emissions, infinite amperage. What could be better?
Note: Humor is a difficult concept.
Tidal schemes for the Severn Estuary in the UK have been mooted for over 100 years.The first proposal was made in 1920 followed by others in 1933, 1944, several in the 1960s and 1970s. In 1981 the Severn barrage was proposed. A consortium of 6 major companies proposed a scheme costing £5.6bn. By 1985 the cost had risen to over £10bn.
Tidal schemes have also been mooted for the Mersey Estuary and Morecambe bay.
None have yet been built.
There are very good reasons for that, despite the attempts to bounce the government via the Hendry Commission. The Mersey scheme is being pushed again, but hopefully will be resisted. The realities are that most tidal barrage schemes are very costly, and they all produce very intermittent, variable output that is very hard for grids to accommodate at scale.
In the case of Lake Sihwa the cost was substantially reduced because they got the barrage for free: it was already built, because the original intention had been to make the lake into a fresh water reservoir – a project that failed. In the case of La Rance, the barrage carries a 4 lane highway between St Malo and Dinard that avoids a substantial inland detourto the first bridge and alternative easily bridgeable point upstream – which would likely have been built just as a bridge anyway, as it carries substantial traffic, particularly in summer. The barrage is just 1 km long, including a lock and the turbines and sluices, yet it encloses 22.4sq km of estuary. Both projects are in reality quite small, averaging about 60MW of output – or the equivalent of one large jet engine.
All the major projects proposed around the UK require much more investment in barrage, and they are likely to have significant undesirable impacts on their surrounding environments.
There’s lots of useful analysis to be found here and at the links from it:
https://euanmearns.com/green-mythology-tidal-base-load-power-in-the-uk/
Thanks for that.
The endngoal is just another perpetual motion dream, like this
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2024/03/14/climate/drinking-bird-energy-power-gadgets-climate-intl/index.html
Several years ago I had an emergency flashlight that you’d shake a minute or two to get about 30 seconds of light. (Must have been a type of linear motor to generate a small bit of electricity.)
Maybe stick a few similar things on the top of a navigation buoy to recharge the battery for it’s light?
Let the waves do the shaking.
That might be a practical use for wave generated electricity.
Didn’t find a reference in a quick search. but these exist, or used to. I’ve read articles about them.