Gulf of Mexico Gets Wave-Powered Desalination Plant 75
blair1q writes "The US Army Corps of Engineers has issued the first permit for a wave-powered desalination plant in American territory to a company called Independent Natural Resources. Waves will operate 'Seadog' pumps, which will lift water into the plant and onto a water wheel connected to a generator, which will create electricity to operate a reverse-osmosis desalination system. The permit runs for four years. Let's hope they don't harm the environment, permanently impact drilling operations, or give Rube Goldberg any crazy ideas..."
oil (Score:1)
Re:oil (Score:5, Funny)
At least now they won't have to worry about lubricating the wheel.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
At least now they won't have to worry about lubricating the wheel.
Yeah, and the tap-water has nice "money" flavor.
faith based technology ? (Score:2)
hey, if it works, I'm all for it...
OK, somebody has to say it (Score:5, Funny)
Can't they just burn the water to power it?
Re: the dangers of Dihydride Oxides (Score:2, Insightful)
technically, that's what a fuel cell is.
You could store the tidal energy by cracking the water H20 into H2 and O2 and then use it in a fuel cell.
But each conversion process means you lose part of the energy.
And since they need non-brackish drinking water, making it directly is more efficient.
Re: (Score:1, Funny)
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The Gulf of Mexico is now a fuel cell.
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In the GOM, just might work now, the water is getting pretty flammable.
Interesting... Links to info (Score:4, Informative)
http://inri.us/index.php/SEADOG Looks promising actually.
Re: (Score:2)
Simple and elegant, I think if I were them I'd be using it to power a commercial scale oil/water separator, unfortunately they might have a hard time keeping up with demand.
Quick Question (Score:2)
What would you do with Desalinated water that would involve it going back into the ocean?
Re:Quick Question (Score:5, Insightful)
Drink it? Use it for cleaning? Any damn thing you do with water?
Many will notice rivers tend to flow towards oceans.
Re: (Score:2)
Then where does the environmental issue come in?
If the water is returning to the ocean, it's not like it is going to affect water levels too much. And if its salt they need, they'll have a bunch lying around from the desalination.
Unless of course, the issue is to use the salt? I think you may have inadvertantly lead me to answering my own question.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The increased salinity in the area of the device, perhaps.
The fact that it may ingest fish and other wildlife could be another issue.
Lots of possibilities.
Re: (Score:1, Funny)
I fear the day that I ingest fish and animals...
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The water would be for drinking, the salt and other minerals, probably sold.
The salt would most likely be discarded. Reverse-Osmosis doesn't produce nice crystals of salt that you can store away and sell. It produces SALTIER water, and salt-less water.
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Saltier water could be allowed to evaporate in tanks to make nice crystals.
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Saltier water could be allowed to evaporate in tanks to make nice crystals.
It could. You'd need quite a lot of dry space to absorb enough energy though to evaporate all the water. There's not a lot of dry space in the ocean. Salt isn't worth very much, and there's already tons of the stuff already evaporated.
Re: (Score:1)
It costs nothing
Not exactly, it must be maintained by staff.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Reverse Osmosis generates water that is super-saline (not dry salt). Under RCRA, highly concentrated salt-water (like the type that can be produced by mass amounts of reverse-osmosis) is legally classified as a kind of hazardous waste, and for good reason.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Could you not evaporate it into sea salt that you sell?
Or release it over a large area and mix it well?
I am thinking some sort of pipe that has many small holes and leaks over a large area. This would mean the super-saline water would be mixed with the sea water very fast.
Re: (Score:2)
B-b-but, that would be suggesting that in this scenario the solution to pollution could actually be dilution! That's madness! Can not allow.
Anyways, as far as evaporating it goes, that'd be a great idea provided they have the land available to actually flood and evaporate on. I don't know if they do or not.
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You could pump the super-saline to many locations via small pipelines (with holes drilled lengthwise).
Is lengthwise not the traditional orientation of the hole in a pipe? Wouldn't make for much of a pipe otherwise.
Re: (Score:1)
Probably has more to do with its effect on dry land, it'll do quite some damage if you pour it onto farm land but if you spread it out enough and put it back into the ocean it should be fine.
Construction harms the environment (Score:2)
The fact that they will build large installations in areas which are essential to the ecosystem. Many species of fish, shrimp, and crab in the Gulf need coastal marshes and mangroves to breed.
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where does the environmental issue come in?
Waste in the form of brine [abc.net.au].
Re: (Score:2)
Flush the toilet?
Missing Quote (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Now available in premium unleaded!
Re: (Score:1)
"Thanks to BP, for the first 3 years of operation, the desalination plant will actually produce Kraft Cajun-Style Salad Dressing."
And, thanks to desalination, it will be low sodium!
This is a very wise investment (Score:4, Interesting)
Using wave technology, which varies in cycles, you can store desalinated water at times of peak flow.
A tidal generator can have many forms - some, which look like buoys, are basically upside-down wind turbines that use the flow of water instead of air to move the blades, while others can use permeated cells. Desalination plants have been around since before WW II, naturally, as have tidal generators.
Delivery of energy supply is one of the main problems with desalination - the process uses a lot of energy, so using local sources such as tidal power makes more sense than trying to string extra power to the plant.
Not that you'd want to drink the swampy and/or briny water in many lowland tidal areas ...
Re: (Score:1)
get a 10MW solar nuclear generator, build the plant around that. power problem solved.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
I'm sorry, but we're talking reality here.
Nuclear fusion has been 20 years in the future since the World's Fair in NY before I was born.
It's still 20 years in the future.
But we do have flying cars, jetpacks, and TV/cell wristwatches.
thanks to BP (Score:3, Funny)
Thanks to the spill this plant is self lubricating.
Just a demo (Score:4, Insightful)
"Rather than sell electricity or water, though, operators will be taking data to measure impact on sea life, the generator's performance, and the cost of operation, said Douglas Sandberg, the vice president of the privately funded company."
So it's just a demo. Only generates 60KW. Not clear if that's average or max power; probably max. On days with low surf, not much will happen.
They've been hyping this since 2004. There are better wave powered generation devices, and even the best ones are commercial flops.
Re:Just a demo (Score:4, Interesting)
flops?
tide power is used all over the world... just because SUV driving rednecks in the US haven't done much with it yet doesn't discount the potential of the power source.
Re:Just a demo (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Just a demo (Score:5, Informative)
Reyling on the moon? Hah! Good luck! Damn thing keeps disappearing all the time, god knows where, and even most of the time it is there parts of it have broken off or something!
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
OMG! How does it became tagged Informative?!
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OMG! How does it became tagged Informative?!
I don't suppose you can tell us where it keeps going then, Mr. Know-It-All?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
It isn't really "used all over the world", certainly not commonly. France built a big one (Rance) in 1966, which was for years the only big one. There are now a few nearing completion in South Korea. Even when they finish, you'll still be able to count the number of tidal installations producing over 50 MW on one hand.
oil tag? (Score:3, Insightful)
why there an "oil" tag on this one?
sure, they probably can't operate it while there's the oil issue in the gulf....though, I wonder if their reverse-osmosis filtration systems can filter out oil.....or the seadog pump that use a "wheel" (also wonder if those "wheels" are like a centrifuge)
even if it can't...send Kevin Costner in (rolls sarcastic eyes here), he'll make it work some how.
Re: (Score:1, Interesting)
gulf of mexxon, or gulf of mexaco.
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I believe in Mexico it'd be called the "Gulf of Messo"
Automatic (Score:1)
At least they won't need to worry about greasing anything for several years, but who's going to buy black salt?
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Goth sailors?
Rate (Score:2, Interesting)
An interesting idea... but just because something is clean and self-sustaining, doesn't make it a wise investment. At what rate does this produce fresh water, and how much does it cost to build? It sounds clever, but would it actually be more efficient than a traditional desalination powered by solar, or even nuclear power?
I hope it works well, but too many of these ideas simply cost too much for too little.
A tiny little application brings the nuclear troll (Score:3, Insightful)
There is also no such thing as "traditional desalination" yet but a nice try at emotional manipulation there.
Do you write this for every new technology and just change two or three words? It just doesn't quite fit in this situation but looks very familiar.
Re: (Score:2)
The Navies of the world would like a word with you. There absolutely is "traditional desalination" which typically runs off waste heat on ships. There are many on shore desalination plants in dry parts of the world with natural gas to flare off.
A cost/benefit analysis is reasonable for every new technology. Please include non-financial costs and benefits but do the thinking before going whole hog.
A billion dollar 50kw generator will never be wort
Re: (Score:2)
I think you'll find they would never dream of calling it such a thing, and instead call it "distillation".
I'm just calling the above poster to task for the usual NIMBY luddite bullshit and raising emotive questions in such a way as to demonstate he has absolutely no clue and didn't even fully read the article summary.
Re: (Score:2)
You think what they call it makes your argument less wrong?
FYI distillation is one of several methods used for desalination.
The GP poster suggested that a reasoned look at the economics of new technology is appropriate prior to deciding it will/won't save the world. You interpret that as 'NIMBY Luddite bullshit' without bothering to understanding it.
I agree with the sib poster. You are a moron.
Re: (Score:2)
There's lots of "traditional" desalination techniques, and it's widely used in regions like the Persian Gulf where supplies of fresh water are limited. You've got everything from evaporative desalination to reverse osmosis which can run on waste heat from power plants or other industrial processes, to reverse-osmosis. And you can easily build a small reverse-osmosis based desalination plant powered by solar. All that takes is some clear skies and a water pump, no need for a complex field installation.
What g
Re: (Score:2)
I'm simply sick of this mindless questioning luddite bullshit that appears whenever an alternative energy is mentioned, along with what I'm assuming is the clueless "why not nukes, we got them right in 1970 but those damn hippies stopped us" bullshit packaged with it.
just wondering (Score:5, Funny)
how many people have to wave at it in order for it to work?
How is this new? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
If everything goes well, slightly higher capital costs for greatly reduced operational costs.
From TFA: "The company chose to work on desalination because the energy costs associated with running desalination plants are very high--as much as 40 percent or 50 percent of operating costs, according to Sandberg."
Re: (Score:2)
"How is this any different from the De-sal plants that run on oil?"
I infer from the title that it runs on wave power.
Here We Go! (Score:3, Interesting)
Any reverse osmosis unit that I have ever seen requires fairly clean sea water to start the process. For example yachts need to be in open water before allowing these units to be started up. Now how will this work with BPs tons and tons of crude oil mixed into the Gulf. One good gulp of oil will foul this new idea completely.