Una potente e continua fonte di energia rinnovabile, ogni giorno disponibile, sta diventando sempre più protagonista fra gli sviluppi delle nuove tecnologie sostenibili. Diverse società che sfruttano l’energia dal mare, dall’oceano, dalle onde e dai fiumi infatti stanno realizzando la loro start up e lo sviluppo dei loro prototipi, cominciando per alcune di loro anche la fase di produzione su scala commerciale.

Inglesi, spagnoli, portoghesi, irlandesi, scozzesi, finlandesi e americani stanno investendo denaro nella ricerca e nello sviluppo di energia dal mare, dall’oceano dalle onde e dai fiumi. Ecco alcuni nomi:

• Marine Current Turbines. La Società inglese vanta di possedere la più grande, e la prima su scala commerciale, di turbina che utilizza energia cinetica dal mare.
• Hydro Green Energy. La Società di Houston in Texas spiega di avere progettato delle turbine da 250KW commercialmente operabili per utilizzare l’energia cinetica prodotta da fiume Mississippi.
• Verdant Power. Con sede a New York, mira ad utilizzare l’energia delle correnti dei fiumi. L’azienda ha già installato con successo una serie di 6 turbine nell’East River di New York.
• Hydrovolts. Con sede a Seattle, ha inventato 3 tipi di turbine progettate per sfruttare le correnti dei fiumi, riducendo la quantità di detriti che viene catturato dalla turbina.
• Finavera Renewable Energy. Con sede nel New Jersey, utilizza il moto verticale delle onde e la pressione dell’acqua per mettere in moto  turbine.
• Orecon. Inglese, la società prevede di realizzare una boa gigante d’acciaio di 40m di diametro cui ne saranno legate 4 per produrre 1,5MW di potenza entro il 2010.
• Pelamis Wave Power. Propone una tecnologia molto simile a quella utilizzata dai centri dati galleggianti di Google
• BioPower Systems. La società con sede ad Aussie sta sviluppano tecnologie che utilizzano energia dal mare e dalle onde
• Atlantis Resources Corp. Ha sviluppato in particolare 2 modelli di turbine: Solon, ad asse orizzontale adatta per le acque profonde e Nereo per acque poco profonde. Le turbine hanno già avuto i loro test al largo delle coste dell’Australia ed ora attendono di essere realizzate su scala commerciale e produrre energia dal mare entro il 2012.
• WaveRoller. La società finlandese attualmente sta testando un interessante prototipo al largo delle coste del Portogallo e ha già in programma di realizzare in scala le sue turbine che utilizzano il moto ondoso dal profondo del mare per generare 1MW entro il 2009.
• Ocean Renewable Power. Con base nel Maine negli USA la società si è assicurata in modo preliminare i permessi per utilizzare alcuni siti nella famosa baia di Fundy, sviluppando progetti per utilizzare le forti correnti marittime della zona.
• Free Flow Power. Del Massachusetts la società intende installare migliaia delle sue piccole turbine nel fiume Mississippi a partire da Saint Louis a New Orleans ce che potrebbero generare 1GW di energia elettrica.

Fonte: Genitrosviluppo
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Since 1844, when the first tide wheel was built, inventors have been trying to harness the immense power of the ocean with little success. Now the next generation of engineers is trying to break the course of history and turn this niche industry into a major energy player.

In 1894, currents were used to compress air and run a turbine; today, waves are being used to compress air in an oscillating water column. In 1923, a patent was issued for a snake-like machine that used waves to run a hydraulic pump; today, Pelamis Wave Power has deployed (and since removed) an almost-identical machine off the coast of Portugal. And in 1946, a horizontal-axis turbine was invented to harness the currents of the ocean; today, Verdant Power is testing a similar device in the East River near New York City.

any people think this industry is new, but these devices have been around for a long time. You see a lot of the newer designs that are based on older designs. The marine energy industry is generally broken up into a number of different technologies: wave, tidal, current, salinity gradient, ocean thermal and offshore wind. Offshore wind — while still very nascent — is one of the only technologies being deployed on a commercial scale.

There’s a lot of excitement about wave and tidal technologies today, a result of the broader interest in clean energy. But some are cautious about some of the claims being made by companies. Many tout the benefits of their technologies, but few are actually close to achieving those claims. The small bits of electricity actually being generated usually come in at the US $0.40 per kilowatt-hour (kWh) range.

Technological successes in marine energy over the last 165 years have been incremental. But with the emergence of new materials, sophisticated electronics and unprecedented amounts of money being invested in new ocean energy technologies, the industry is looking far different than it did in the past.

Today’s marine renewable energy industry is commonly compared to the wind industry of the 1980’s and early 1990’s. At that time, there were many competing technologies being developed and thousands of turbines were broken during the testing process. Eventually, certain designs won out, parts for those machines were standardized, and a supply chain was created to service them. The marine energy industry will have to go through the same culling process. Ocean energy is about 15 years behind wind energy, but it won’t take 15 years to catch up.

With only 10 megawatts of installed marine energy capacity around the world, the industry has a long way to go before it catches up with the more than 120 gigawatts of global wind capacity. In theory, the oceans could supply us with a lot of energy. The International Energy Agency estimates that tidal, wave, current, salinity gradient and ocean thermal technologies could represent more than 100,000 terawatt-hours of energy each year.

The high cost of demonstrating projects remains a significant problem, especially recently because of the lack of capital available due to the financial crisis. Once technologies are ready to be deployed on a commercial or pre-commercial scale, a long and complex permitting process must be completed. This process can also be a problem for inexperienced, cash-strapped companies — especially in the U.S.

Source: RenewableEnergyWorld.com

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This fascinating tidal power project is being conducted by Verdant Power.

Image: RITE Project Phase 2: Verdant Power Free Flow Turbine Being Installed into East River (December 2006). Photographer: Kris Unger; Source: Verdant Power, Inc.

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Ocean power has suffered some setbacks recently, such as Pelamis’ bellyflop in Portugal and the UK’s WaveHub losing a developer, but the industry isn’t slowing down — in fact, it’s been a busy month for tidal technology. While there are only a small number of wave or tidal power projects in oceans and rivers right now, and large-scale projects remain a few years away, the race is on for companies hoping to get a first-mover’s advantage.

Alstom jumped into the tidal game this week when it teamed up with Clean Current Power Systems, and Verdant Power said earlier this month that it has moved closer to expanding its New York project. And developers of the Bay of Fundy site in Canada, which will include a turbine from Clean Current, are busy setting the stage for the first turbine to go in the water this fall.

Vancouver, British Columbia-based Clean Current now has a big-name partner in its corner, which could give it a leg up over the competition. France’s Alstom, a major railroad and power infrastructure company is getting an exclusive worldwide license to Clean Current’s technology for ocean power applications, and plans to commercialize its first tidal power products by 2012. Financial terms weren’t disclosed, but Alstom is not taking an equity stake in Clean Current as part of the deal.

For New York’s Verdant Power, which has already been knocked around by the rough waters in the Big Apple, it may be trying to prove that if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere. The company installed six turbines in the East River in 2006 generating 175 kilowatts of power, but wants to bump that up to an array of 30 turbines. The company said the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission concluded the pre-filing process for the expansion, and that the next step is for Verdant to submit its final license application.

The power output on that project would still be relatively low, generating about 1 MW of electricity, but Verdant is planning on building a larger project nearby that would generate 2-4 MW. Verdant is also working on a demonstration project up north, in the St. Lawrence River near Cornwall, Ontario, which the company said could eventually produce up to 15 MW of power.

Further east, in Nova Scotia, the Bay of Fundy project, backed by the provincial government and EnCana (s ECA), is filing an environmental report this week. The project will have three grid-connected turbines producing a total of about 4 MW. In addition to Clean Current, Ireland’s OpenHydro, and the UK’s Marine Current Turbines will be plugging into the test site.

Ocean power is likely to face some more bumps on the road to commercialization — the more projects that are in the water, the more chances there will be for kinks to show up in the technology — but if this pace continues, there could be plenty of momentum to keep things going forward.

Photo of a turbine being installed at Race Rocks in British Columbia courtesy of Clean Current.

A raft of startups has set out to harness energy from waves and tides, many of them in the turbulent waters of Scotland’s Pentland Firth. A subset of that group has emerged in recent months with plans (and prototypes) for tapping river flows.

Rivers have powered grist mills since before Mark Twain sent Huck Finn afloat on the Mississippi, and the Great Miami River even generated electricity for some early Ford (s F) factories. But mounting political pressure to develop alternative sources of energy has sparked new interest — and investment — in river power technology that’s far less obtrusive than the hydroelectric dams that now generate about 10 percent of electricity used in the United States. Companies like the five below are leading a new wave of river power, or hydrokinetic, technology.

Free Flow Power: Massachusetts-based Free Flow Power has its eye on the Lower and Middle Mississippi River for turbine arrays that can be mounted to free-standing pilings or existing docks and piers. The company secured its first preliminary federal permits from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission at the beginning of this year, winning exclusive rights for three years to evaluate sites from St. Louis to the mouth of the Mississippi. It’s now studying 55 sites for a 1,600 megawatt, $3 billion project.

Verdant Power: Selected as one of six teams to receive DOE funding for water power technology development, Verdant Power is negotiating an award (up to $600,000 for a max of two years) to develop a larger, higher-power turbine blade system and streamline the manufacturing process. The New York-based startup began testing turbine prototypes, first made of fiberglass and steel, and then aluminum and magnesium, in the East River (technically a tidal strait, not a river) two years ago. Verdant bolted its latest prototypes, made from an aluminum alloy, to the riverbed in September. If these turbines hold together, company president Trey Taylor has told the Washington Post, Verdant expects to apply for permits to launch a commercial operation. Smooth sailing is hardly guaranteed, however. Planned installations in Cornwall, Ontario, were delayed last week after an important investor pulled out, despite more than $2.2 million in funding from the Ontario government.

Hydro Green Energy: This Quercus Trust-backed startup plans to generate 5 gigawatts of energy from two rivers (and some wind) in the Gulf of Mexico, using its modular, barge-mounted turbine arrays. It also has projects and preliminary permits in Alaska, Maine, Minnesota and New York. According to a recent report from The Hill, the company has also begun lobbying for federal appropriations.

Vortex Hydro Energy: Founded in 2004 to commercialize then-early-stage research from the University of Michigan, this startup found its inspiration in fish, which use natural vibrations in water to propel forward. While engineers typically try to suppress those vibrations, the ocean engineers behind Vortex Hydro decided to exploit them, creating a stationary underwater device (with funding from the U.S. Department of Energy and the Office of Naval Research) that can generate electricity from currents moving slower than 2 miles per hour. According to the researchers, existing turbines and water mills need flow speeds of at least 5 mph to operate efficiently. The completed study appears in this month’s Journal of Offshore Mechanics and Arctic Engineering. Next up, the company says, is a multi-kilowatt field demonstration.

Hydrovolts: Hydrovolts, formerly Puget Sound Tidal Power, specializes in modular turbines that resist debris buildup in rivers and canals. While each turbine generates enough electricity for up to only three average American homes (suggesting potential for areas not connected to a reliable power grid in developing countries), the company says large installations could result in utility-scale generation without altering the water channel.

A powerful and consistent sources of energy is lapping at our shorelines: the ocean. A number of startups are looking to harness its power. The British, Scottish and American governments have all offered up money for research and development in hydrokinetic energy generation, and slowly but surely startups are getting their feet wet in the world of wave and tidal energy.

Marine Current Turbines: The British startup boasts to have the world’s first and largest commercial-scale tidal turbine, its 1.2 MW SeaGen. The startup’s corporate shareholders and strategic partners include large European banks and utilities like EDF Energy, BankInvest and Northern Ireland Electricity.

Hydro Green Energy: The Houston, Texas-based startup told us it is planning to have a commercially operable hydrokinetic energy project in Mississippi River waters up and running in September and will sell power from the 250-kilowatt project to Xcel Energy. Once up and running, Hydro Green hopes to close a Series B round of funding in the neighborhood of $70 million. Hydro Green has also signed an agreement with Wind Energy Systems Technology Group to explore the development of a hybrid offshore wind-plus-hydrokinetic ocean current power project in the Gulf of Mexico. David Gelbaum’s Quercus Trust led the company’s $2.6 million Series A round in April this year.

Verdant Power: New York-based Verdant Power was founded in 2000 and seeks to tap the energy of river currents. The company has successfully installed an array of 6 grid-connected turbines in New York’s East River. Verdant is also working on project in Canada, for which it has been granted C$3.35 million from Ontario which could be as large as 15 megawatts by 2012.

Hydrovolts: Hydrovolts was founded in 2006 and has invented three types of turbines designed to tap river currents while reducing the amount of debris that gets caught in the turbine. Based in Seattle, Wash., Hydrovolts finished a feasibility study for local utility Tacoma Power. Beyond rivers and canals, Hydrovolts is also working on combining wind and wave power to harness offshore energy in the ocean, too. The company is proposing a potential project in Grays Harbor, Wash. that it says could power Western Washington with 15,000 MW of renewable energy. The Hydrovolts founders tell us they are looking to raise capital and hire talent.

Finavera Renewables: Publicly traded Finavera has committed 2 megawatts of wave energy to PG&E in a power purchase agreement. The proposed wave park would consist of eight buoys off the Northern California coast and is planned for completion by 2012. If all goes well, Finavera hopes to expand the park to 100 MW. Its technology uses the vertical motion of waves to pressurize seawater and power a turbine.

Ocean Power Technologies: The New Jersey-headquartered wave-energy startup, has signed a joint development agreement with Australian energy provider Griffin Energy for the development, construction and operation of a 10- to 100-megawatt wave-power station off the coast of Western Australia. The company has successfully tested a 1 megawatt installation for the U.S. Navy in Hawaii. Ocean Power made a $100 million initial public offering on Nasdaq last year to help raise funds.

Orecon: British wave-power startup Orecon is reportedly building a giant steel buoy, 40 meters in diameter, that will be tethered four miles offshore and be able to generate 1.5 megawatts by 2010. The six-year old company has already raised £12 million (or $24 million) from Venrock, Advent Venture Partners, Wellington Partners and Norway’s North Zone.

Pelamis Wave Power: Another Brit wave startup, Pelamis has already raised £40 million from a list of investors including Emerald Technology Ventures, 3i and the Carbon Trust. Founded in 1998, the company is currently working on three projects — off the coasts of Portugal, Cornwall and Scotland — which are in development but have yet to put a buoy in the water for any of them. The company claims that its prototype was the first grid-connected wave energy generator in the world when it was tested in 2004. The company’s technology is very similar to that proposed by Google for its floating data centers.

BioPower Systems: The Aussie startup is developing both tidal and wave energy turbines with its bioSTREAM generator and bioWAVE, respectively. The company is now working on two pilot projects, one for each technology, with Hydro Tasmania and aims to get them running by 2009.

Atlantis Resources Corp.: Morgan Stanley recently sold its own ocean current company, Current Resources, for a majority share of Atlantis, a Singapore-based maker of ocean tidal turbines. Founded in 1996, Atlantis has developed two different turbine designs — the Solon, a ducted horizontal axis design for strong, but remote, deep sea currents and the Nereus for more accessible shallow waters. Successful, grid-connected tests of the company’s turbines have already taken place off the coast of Australia, and commercial-scale arrays are scheduled to start power production by 2012.

WaveRoller: Finnish startup WaveRoller is avoiding the surface problems of NIMBY-ism by putting a wave generator on the seabed that builds up hydraulic pressure as waves roll over it. The company is currently testing a prototype off the coast of Portugal and plans to scale the grid-connected project to 1 MW by 2009.

Ocean Renewable Power: The Maine-based startup has secured preliminary permits for sites near the famous Bay of Fundy to develop ocean and tidal current energy generation projects. The company has started installing its turbines off the Maine coast and its longer-term goals include installations in Alaska and Florida waters.

Free Flow Power: The Massachusetts-based startup has a $3 billion plan to place thousands of small electric turbines down the Mississippi river — from St. Louis to New Orleans — which could generate over a gigawatt of electricity. The startup reportedly has preliminary three-year permits to study 59 sites in the Mississippi, granted by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

MUDGE’S Musings

Two fascinating stories came our way today, courtesy at least in one case and possibly both, of reddit.com .

[Don't know what's going on with Digg lately, but reddit just has better stuff, and Digg seems to be proving that its flavor of Web 2.0 doesn't have a clue when it comes to news one can use, and MUDGE hereby expels it from the blogroll.]

So, they both involve water, in a micro and a macro way, with technological solutions to pressing and urgent global challenges.

Story the first:

Watercone – An Ingenious Way To Turn Salt Water Into Fresh Water

Written by The Naib

The Watercone is an ingenious device that can take salty water and turn it into fresh water using only the power of the sun. The nice thing about this device is it is bone simple, uses the sun instead of fossil fuel, and is cheap to make and easy to use.

So simple as to beg the question — can it possibly work? So simple as to beg the question — this costs $27.00???

But, take a look at the full story.

[Per L-HC's reformed process, please click the link below for the complete article -- but then please come on back!]

Watercone – Ingenious Way To Turn Salt Water Into Fresh Water

What’s utterly lovable about this concept is that it’s high tech in the service of low tech.

2. Absolutely, low concept and low tech.
As opposed to other types of solar stills which feature electronics, photo-voltaic cells, tubes, filters, many parts, etc. the Watercone concept is understood within seconds with absolutely no need for academic background. Additionally it (cone & pan) is made from Bayer Makrolon, a high-tech ultra-rugged and highly recyclable polycarbonate, virtually insensitive to UV exposure or breakage, an all too common result of rough transport.

They tell us that, for the 21st century, water is the new petroleum — highly valued (can’t live without it, until Nestle comes up with bottled synthetic water, manufactured from spent uranium or something!); limited supply.

So, we can provide a solar powered laptop to the children of the third world, and if they’re coast dwellers, solar created potable water to help them reach a thriving adulthood. Extraordinary.

On to story the second, also a technology story involving water.

East River Turbines Face Upstream Battle

The alternative energy company that has plans to install hundreds of turbines in the East River to harness tidal energy and generate zero-emission electrical power is running into trouble due to the massive amount of energy they are dealing with. The small number of turbines already placed in the East River by Verdant Power have been temporarily removed as the strong currents continue to overwhelm the physical construction of the underwater “windmills.” The six turbines that were placed in the water last December and were capable of supplying 1,000 daily kilowatt hours of power and serving the Gristedes supermarket on Roosevelt Island could not withstand currents.

The East River is not actually a river; it’s a tidal strait, and one can easily observe the current moving in opposite directions with the tides. Verdant Power’s plan is to install a field of turbines anchored to the bottom of the East River and use the currents to generate pollution-free electricity for the city. The currents have proven so strong, however, that the turbine propellers have been sheared off a third of the way down, and stronger replacements were hampered by insufficiently strong bolt connections to the turbine hubs.

So, when I first saw this post, I have to admit, I was skeptical – was MUDGE being punked? Does elderly MUDGE even know what punked means?

Yup, of course it’s real, this blog links to a story in yesterday’s NYTimes, which even mentions MUDGE’s current presidential fixation, Michael Bloomberg. So, okay, I’ve just injected a bit of unreality, but bear with the story, please!

[Per L-HC's reformed process, please click the link below for the complete article -- but then please come on back!] Gothamist: East River Turbines Face Upstream Battle

So, here’s an example of cutting edge high tech overreaching. Or, shearing edge. Hard to imagine that the tidal currents are so strong as to incapacitate these water mills. Harder to imagine that they’ve spent a lot of time (and of course some public money) and couldn’t predict the power of water — exhibit A.

And there you have it, an example of MUDGE’s weird penchant for tying together disparate threads into a unified theme. So, which do you think makes the liquid grade today? Drinking water from a $27 piece of plastic and the sun? Or, hydro power for NYC from a tidefarm that had better be made from materials stronger than granite?

An interesting race that we’ll watch with interest.

In our rush to improve the first and third worlds with all of this wonderful technology, let’s not forget to FIX ALL OF THOSE GODDAMN BRIDGES ALREADY!

It’s it for now. Thanks,

–MUDGE