Japan Tests New Generator That Harvests Energy from Deep Ocean Currents
June 5th, 2022The article states, “The company now plans to scale up to a full 2 megawatt system that could be in commercial operation in the 2030s or later.”
Two megawatts over the next couple of decades isn’t nothing, but, to give you an idea of how small this is: Ford just put 13.5 megawatts of solar on carports at one of its factories in South Africa.
Via: Bloomberg:
Power-hungry, fossil-fuel dependent Japan has successfully tested a system that could provide a constant, steady form of renewable energy, regardless of the wind or the sun.
For more than a decade, Japanese heavy machinery maker IHI Corp. has been developing a subsea turbine that harnesses the energy in deep ocean currents and converts it into a steady and reliable source of electricity. The giant machine resembles an airplane, with two counter-rotating turbine fans in place of jets, and a central ‘fuselage’ housing a buoyancy adjustment system. Called Kairyu, the 330-ton prototype is designed to be anchored to the sea floor at a depth of 30-50 meters (100-160 feet).
In commercial production, the plan is to site the turbines in the Kuroshio Current, one of the world’s strongest, which runs along Japan’s eastern coast, and transmit the power via seabed cables.
