Oh, Snap
– New Technology Could Solve World’s Energy Woes … But Only If Rubber Band Doesn’t Break –
One of the positive outcomes from the whole global warming debate has been the focus on exploring new technologies to produce energy.
As anyone who’s read the Cliff Notes to The Old Man and the Sea knows, man has long been fascinated by the lure and power of the sea as well as the lure and power of Cliff Notes to help cut studying time.
One of the latest attempts to generate clean, renewable energy involves trying to harness the power of the ocean to generate electricity.
The MIT Technology Review (no, really, someone gave it to me as a gift…) notes that:
“Technology for harnessing the ocean’s energy already exists, but it has not been widely adopted, largely because it has trouble withstanding the pounding of the waves .. Earlier systems used more-conventional electromagnetic devices, such as dynamos with complex transmissions, hydraulic pistons, and turbines. The gears of a transmission, in particular, are vulnerable to wear and tear from the erratic surging of ocean waves.”
Translating from the original geek, this means there’s this really cool idea that, in theory, should solve a problem but doesn’t work in the real world. Kind of like universal health care.
The good news is, engineers have figured out a way to harness wave power without all that complicated hydraulic stuff. Basically, someone figured out they could just use a big rubber band.
In contrast, the SRI system is not much more than a sheet of rubber attached to a weight. It has “the mechanical complexity of a rubber band,” says SRI senior researcher Roy Kornbluh.
The MIT research is based, in part, on technology first discovered by The Spinners back in the 1970s…
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Harnessing the power of funky dance for an energy-starved world…
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