Industry Overview

Wave/Tidal Power Generation

The benefits of Tidal power generation it that unlike the wind, the current and tides follow a regular cycle. In British Columbia there are a number of narrow channels that have some of the world’s best tidal resources.

There are a number of different wave power generators being worked on, there are land based, floating, submerged, and offshore plat forms.  The land based systems work off the power of the wave hitting the shore line.  The wave is funneled though a channel which then turns a turbine blade. The submerged systems work off the current, similar to a hydro dam. The current drives the turbine blades. The floating systems have joints that bend with the waves causing two pistons at each joint to compress and expand. This system is usually 150m long with a 3m diameter casing. This allows for a 1m stroke with a 20 degree wave in both compression and expansion.  There is also the idea that an offshore platform could involve all these systems, wind, solar, tidal, current, and wave.

Wireless Sensing Could Reduce Installation Cost

Current methods for monitoring power plant are to place sensors on key components of the plant and hard-wire these sensors to a control room that monitors and records the data.  Due to the size of some plants the cost of wiring can be greater then the sensor.  This cost has discouraged companies from installing enough sensors to fully monitor the power plant.

In the last couple years, new wireless sensors have been developed.  These sensors feature a standard physical communication layer, a battery life of year or more, and a self-forming mesh network.  By removing the cost of wiring the sensors and maintaining them over the years, a company can install more sensor to monitor plants performance.  With better monitoring comes better preventative maintenance.

Wireless systems are already being tested in realistic power plant environments in Wilsonville, Alabama.  The models being tested have 128kb of program flash memory and 512kb of measurement flash memory.  The wireless communication uses a 2.4 GHz radio frequency with a maximum transmission power of 3dBm.  This board has 51-pin I/O expansion connector that the sensors are connected to.  This board is powered by two AA alkaline batteries and when in sleep mode draws only 8?A.

The technology is still not as reliable as a wired system; radio interference can be a large problem with areas not able to operate.  Potential fixes to this problem is line of sight communication with directional antenna as apposed to Omni-directional. This would require either multi antennas to point to different devices to form a mesh and have one directional for sending data and one Omni direction all to receive data. The draw back of this would be the system would no longer be a self-forming mesh and alignment would be required at installation.

Low Flow Turbine

With growing water demand and reduced runoff due to drought water feeding hydroelectric power plants around the world are in need of a more efficient turbine that can produce the same or more energy with less water.  Low flow turbines are already being installed in the hover dam in Nevada.  There are 17 commercial generators at the Hover Dam power plant, nine in the Arizona wing and eight in the Nevada wing. This new turbine is expected to be delivered to the dam in February 2012. If successful more runners would be outfitted with this new turbine.

Fusion Reactor

An experimental nuclear fusion reactor near Moscow could be, in a couple years, the first to have a self-sustaining fusion reaction.  This build is a joint venture between Italy and Russia; if successful would be a huge milestone in fusion power technology.

Nuclear power plants around the world currently use a reaction called nuclear fission to produce two kinds of energy, electromagnetic radiation and kinetic energy of the fragments. Nuclear fission is a reaction in which the nucleus of an atom splits into smaller parts, often producing free neutrons and protons in the form of gamma rays. In nuclear power plants, a substance called nuclear fuel, typically Uranium235, undergo fission when struck by a free neutron creating Uranium236. This new element then breaks into two producing Barium141, Kryton92, three free neutrons and thermal energy. The three neutrons produced can then start the process over again.  This reaction speed determines the amount of energy produced and is controlled.

fusion reaction is the opposite of a fission reaction. In a fusion reaction plasma is compressed using electromagnetic fields that causes the hydrogen nuclei to fuse together to form helium in a process that releases tremendous amounts of heat. This heat then would power an electricity-generating turbine. A fusion reaction can produce three or four times more energy then that of a fission reaction.  If the proper atoms are selected this reaction can produce no radioactive waste.

Electricity Generating Shock Absorber

Electricity generating shock absorbers that can reduce fuel consumption by 1.5 to 6 percent, depending on vehicle and road conditions. These shock absorbers convert the vibration of the road to electricity by using exciting shock technology of a piston moving in oil but including a generator that turns from the movement of the oil. This generator is then connected to a control box that also has sensors on it to change the resistance of the shock to improve vehicle handling.  This system has a larger impact on fuel consumption the rougher the road but even commercial trucking will be able to pay off price difference of the shock absorber with in 18 month.  This short payback period is due to the majority of the parts being off-the-shelf parts.