World’s first grid-connected wave power station switched on in Australia, supplies desalinated water

[nationalize the fed]

Sciencealert.com MYLES GOUGH 23 FEB 2015

The world’s first grid-connected wave power station has been activated off the coast of Western Australia (WA). After more than a decade of testing and demonstrations, Australian company Carnegie Wave Energy has switched on a pilot project that has begun feeding wave-generated electricity into a local WA grid.

“This is the first array of wave power generators to be connected to an electricity grid in Australia and worldwide,” said Ivor Frischknecht, CEO of the Australian Renewable Energy Agency, in a statement. The Agency has provided $13 million of the $32 million project.

The company’s technology named CETO after a Greek goddess of the sea converts ocean swell into zero-emission renewable power and zero-emission desalinated freshwater.



The company says its system is “different from other wave energy devices as it operates under water where it is safer from large storms [and corrosion] and invisible from the shore”.

The round, submerged buoys are tethered to seabed pump units, which are installed at a depth of between 25 and 50 metres. Waves crashing into the buoys drive the pumps, which push pressurised seawater through a pipeline beneath the ocean floor to an onshore hydroelectric power station. Here, the high-pressure water drives a turbine and generates electricity...snip

http://www.sciencealert.com/world-s-first-grid-connected-wave-power-station-switched-on-in-australia

$13 Million Dollars? The US spends almost $20 MILLION DOLLARS PER HOUR just on the wars and "homeland security" https://www.nationalpriorities.org/cost-of/

Existing Worldwide Desalination facilities and facilities under construction
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desalination#Existing_facilities_and_facilities_under_construction

Seawater desalination in Australia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seawater_desalination_in_Australia

US Trainers To Deploy To Ukraine
Also Will Begin Shipment of US-funded Armored Vehicles

...The training mission has been the subject of plenty of discussion among US policy makers for months, and the United States has already earmarked $19 million to help build the Ukrainian National Guard...
http://www.defensenews.com/story/defense/land/army/2015/01/21/ukraine-us-army-russia/22119315/

[madamvlb]

1. Very interesting read, thanks for posting.

[newfie11]

2. We could have this too if we stopped having "wars"

but MIC apparently rules this country.

[brush]

4. You are so right . . .

but I see from your avatar (Gen. Smedley Butler's book cover) that you already know the reason we keep wars going is for the humongous profits that are made by our war profiteer corporations.

We could have wave energy installations, wind and solar all over, geothermal, even high grade oil from algae technology is out there.

I don't get why the energy companies don't take the lead to develop these alternate energy sources . . . oh wait, maybe it's because they're to lazy to do anything other than keep drilling for oil because the infrastructure is already there, to hell with the planet. Same with enviro-fucking fracking and tar sands/accidents-waiting to happen pipelines.

No, green energy w-a-a-a-y TOO expensive.

[Auggie]

10. +1 (though California should have the resources to undertake this on our own).

[brush]

11. Your governor has done a great job in turning that state's economy . . .

around. I hope he turns his attention to this issue next.

Guess since he's held about every political office, some more than once, he's not interested in running for president? He be a good candidate.

[Auggie]

12. Brown will turn 78 in 2016 ...

he might be ready to slow down.

[brush]

13. Yeah! Too bad he's not 10 years younger. nt

[OnlinePoker]

3. Sadly, the wave power company I have been following closed shop

Pelamis Wave Power - They couldn't get any buyers after going into bankruptcy protection. Another Scottish firm has bought some of the assets, but I think it will be pretty hard to carry on the program.

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-scotland-business-30560980

[BlueJazz]

5. Boy...those Australians are some of the smartest people in the world.

[valerief]

6. Way cool. And we kill for oil. nt

[Orrex]

7. This is easier for Australia because seawater naturally flows to the bottom of the world

K/R!

[mountain grammy]

8. Exciting news..

especially if a waste product is fresh water.. California will need this, only 4 years into what is most likely a mega drought.

[Enthusiast]

9. This is unlimited energy, free for the taking.

Imagine, all the freshwater needed for any purpose or project.

There is no good reason to burn another gallon of fossil fuel except in the temporary interest of transitioning over to free and renewable.

Why would we fight a war for fossil fuel? Why would we despoil another acre of ground or water in the pursuit of fossil fuel?

In the words of Wavy Gravy, "We must be in heaven, man!"

[The2ndWheel]

14. And the footprint expands

[hunter]

15. Soon to be scrap metal, sunk, or washed up on a beach somewhere.

The ocean has no respect for the follies of man.

The nice thing about solar is that the plant can be maintained, and often repaired, by a couple of guys driving golf carts, and air is not nearly so hostile to machinery as ocean water is.

I recognize that Carnegie Wave Energy is doing this on Garden Island because marine engineering facilities are close at hand, and that the final product would be used in places where solar might not be such an obvious solution. But even wind turbines seem much less a maintenance nightmare per kilowatt hour delivered than these wave machines.

We need to stop pinning our hopes on future technologies. The fires of environmental catastrophe are raging all around us today and the only way back is to reduce our population and rethink what "economic productivity" really is. Our current measures of economic productivity are directly proportional to the damage we are doing to earth's environment. That isn't any sort of "productivity" at all.

[NickB79]

17. Salt and waves are technology-killers, that's for sure

Anyone who's ever spent much time on or near the sea knows how hard it is to stop the corrosion and damage that seawater is so apt to do.

I wonder, too, if any sea life will try to colonize these structures? I can't imagine a thick coating of barnacles would improve the buoy's performance.....

[niyad]

16. k and r for a most interesting read.

[GreenPartyVoter]

18. Very cool!

[NYC_SKP]

19. We're doomed if we think more technology is the cure for too much technology.

It mirrors the medical/phamaceutical industrial complex that has a pill to cure everything, including the side effects from taking other pills.