Tag Archives: electricity

Hydro Power from the Ocean

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Scotland to deploy largest hydro-electric wave energy farm to date (w/ video)

2 hours ago by Bob Yirka report

Scotland to deploy largest hydro-electric wave energy farm to date

(Phys.org) —Fergus Ewing, Scotland’s energy minister, has announced plans for the deployment of 40 to 50 Oyster hydro-electric wave devices off the country’s northwestern shore. The new facility will be capable of producing 40MW of electricity, which should be enough to power approximately 30,000 homes—making it the largest such facility in the world.

To generate electricity from the project will utilize two separate mechanisms. The first is the —a device that uses to pump water to the second part of the system, a hydro-electric station—it converts the water pumped to it to electricity. The Oyster device sits just offshore (it’s bolted to the ) in water 10 to 12 meters deep. In essence it’s a large buoyant flap that is pushed back and forth by wave action—that motion is used to drive hydraulic pistons that push the water ashore. The Oyster is big, weighing in at roughly 200 tons—the flap alone is roughly 18 by 12 by 4 meters in size. Each Oyster device is capable of pushing enough water to the onshore station to produce 315kW of electricity. During , just 2 meters of the top of the flap can be seen. To produce large amounts of electricity, multiple Oyster devices will be deployed, all connected to the same hydro-electric station.

A company called Aquamarine Power will build the Oyster devices, some of which have already been successfully tested at another location in Scotland. The only hold up, a company rep told the press, was the timetable for installation of the which is to distribute the electricity from the hydro-electric station to the grid. It will be put in place by European energy giant SSE which announced separately that they wouldn’t be able to finish laying the cable for the system until 2017. For that reason, the project overall isn’t expected to go online until sometime 2018.

During the announcement, Ewing noted that Scotland is uniquely situated to take advantage of wave energy, noting the country offers 10 percent of Europe’s total wave power potential. The total expected cost of the project has not been announced, but money to pay for the new system will come from the government’s £18 million Marine Renewables Commercialization Fund.

Aquamarine Power – Oyster 800 wave energy converter in action

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2013-05-scotland-deploy-largest-hydro-electric-energy.html#jCp

NOTE:  if the video is not attached, go to the link above to access it.

Bacteria Powered Lightbulb

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Bacteria, Not Electricity, Powers This Light Bulb

by Mary Mazzoni
Published on December 5th, 2011

Philips, electronics, bio light, bacteria, light, lampThis futuristic combination of glass, steel and bioluminescent bacteria could be the future of home lighting. Photo: Philips

We’ve all heard of energy efficient lighting, but how about lighting that requires no electricity at all? Dutch electronics company Philips is testing a futuristic lighting technology powered solely by recycled household waste and live bacterial culture.

While inviting bacteria into your home may sound a little icky, the company’s “bio-light” harnesses the power of microorganisms to provide soft, cozy lighting for any room of the house without using a watt of electricity – making the whole idea sound more green than gross.

The test probe is comprised of a wall of glass cells containing bioluminescent bacteria that naturally produce light in a manner similar to fireflies. The bacteria cast a warm green glow when fed methane gas, which, in the test model, is pumped into the lighting system from a household waste digester.

“Energy-saving light bulbs will only take us so far,” said Clive van Heerden, senior director of design-led innovation at Philips Design. “We need to push ourselves to rethink domestic appliances entirely, to rethink how homes consume energy and how entire communities can pool resources.”

Part of the company’s Microbial Home project – a science fiction-like vision of a household ecosystem that uses bacteria to rethink energy, cleaning, food preservation, lighting and human waste – the bio-light could potentially be self-energizing and self-repairing, the company said.

“In [the Microbial Home] project the home has been viewed as a biological machine to filter, process and recycle what we conventionally think of as waste – sewage, effluent, garbage and waste water,” the company said.

In addition to home lighting, bio-light technology could potentially be used for nighttime road markings, warning strips on stairs and curbsides, diagnostic indicators for local pollution levels and even biosensors for monitoring diseases like diabetes, the company said.

Philips said the bio-light is more suitable for mood-lighting than “functional illumination,” but researchers are intrigued by the prospect of energy-free light. The technology will continue to be tested as part of the Microbial Home project, the company said.

from:    http://earth911.com/news/2011/12/05/philips-bio-light-lighting-made-from-bacteria/

Cooking Oil to Heat Your Home

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Used Cooking Oil to Power U.K. Homes

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Published on November 1st, 2011
Liverpool, England, Merseyside, travel, boat, barge, river, shipping

The Federation of Fish Fryers in the U.K. estimates that one out of every four British potatos becomes part of a fish and chips dinner. That’s 1.25 million tons every year and a whole lot of cooking oil. Photo: Flickr/ Nigel’s Europe

Creative greenies have found some pretty cool applications for used cooking oil. It powers bus fleets, helps people travel the world and can even be used to heat your home. This month, Merseyside, England is taking recycled oil even further by using it to power local homes.

Merseyside Waste Disposal Authority (MWDA), its contractor Veolia Environmental Services and green energy firm Living Fuels are teaming up to collect waste oil, refine it and produce a patented bioliquid, waste management officials said.

Living Fuels will use the bioliquid to power specially-designed engines and supply power to the national grid – a move that waste management officials said will provide renewable energy, help keep the community clean and save U.K. water companies millions of pounds per year.

Cooking oil is a common household waste product in Merseyside, thanks to all those yummy fish and chips platters. And many residents simply pour their used oil down the sink – which gunks up local sewer systems and contaminates the environment, officials said.

Water companies in the U.K. currently spend £15 million a year clearing used cooking oil from their sewers, and 75 percent of the 200,000 drain clearance call-outs every year involve cooking oil, according to MWDA.

“Millions of pounds are being tipped down the drain every year as a direct result of pouring cooking oil into the sink,” said Joe De’Asha, chairperson of MWDA. “As well as removing this waste product from the environment we’re also helping to create energy. So, residents can be doubly pleased they’re helping clean up Merseyside.”

Collection tanks have been fitted at the region’s 14 household waste recycling centers, where residents can bring their leftover cooking oil rather than pouring it down the drain. Holding about 330 gallons, each tank will produce enough electricity to power one average home for an entire year, according to Living Fuels.

“Since we started out three years ago we’ve collected enough waste oil to power 5,000 UK homes for a year. But we can still do much, much more,” said Rob Murphy, operations director for Living Fuels.

The company has been collecting cooking oil from U.K. businesses since 2008, and executives said they are thrilled to have Merseyside as a partner to rescue more waste oil from landfills and water supplies.

Cooking oil recycling will be available to all Merseyside residents, including households in Knowsley, Liverpool, Sefton, St. Helens and Wirral

from:    http://earth911.com/news/2011/11/01/used-cooking-oil-to-power-u-k-homes/