While human beings have made overcoming nature the official business of the past millennium, they’ve often overlooked the fact that the solution, they are often times trying to create on their own, most likely already exists in one from or another in nature. After all, nature has had billions of years to hammer out the kinks of running a functional planet. So in the instances where humans have decided to emulate nature as a means for solving a problem, i.e. Wright Brothers with flight, the outcome has almost always been met with success. This concept of examining and emulating nature is called biomimicry and though it is now gaining more attention, it’s actually an ancient concept.
BioWAVE and BioSTREAM Are Biomimicry In Motion…Literally
The Sydney-based BioPower Systems has taken the concept of biomimicry and applied it to its bioWAVE and bioSTREAM systems designed to produce clean renewable energy from wave motion. Unlike other ocean-based kinetic energy systems, like Pelamis, or underwater wind turbines, like SeaGen, the BioWAVE system emulates the plant life surrounding it and poses no threat to surface traffic or underwater wildlife.
If you’ve ever seen any footage of the ocean floor, you’ve probably noticed the gentle swaying of seaweed, or some other form of ocean floor vegetation, back and forth with the undulation of the waves moving above. Though gentle in appearance, this swaying has an enormous amount of kinetic energy waiting to be harnessed. The bioWAVE is essentially a composite-based underwater tethered buoy system that has a self-contained actuator built into it that converts the kinetic energy from the swaying motion of the buoys into electricity that can then be transmitted to an electrical grid for use. In times of turbulent conditions, the bioWAVE automatically lays flat against the bottom of the ocean floor until conditions return to operational levels. View the animation of how it works HERE.
Though the means by which it produces electricity is similar to the bioWAVE, the bioSTREAM operates differently from it’s larger cousin. Instead of harnessing the power of waves, and mimicing ocean-floor plant life, the bioSTREAM harnesses the power of tidal currents in more shallow waters and emulates the swimming motion of Thunniform mode swimming species like sharks and tuna. It works as follows:
“The bioSTREAM™ mimics the shape and motion characteristics of these species but is a fixed device in a moving stream. In this configuration the propulsion mechanism is reversed and the energy in the passing flow is used to drive the device motion against the resisting torque of an electrical generator. Due to the single point of rotation, this device can align with the flow in any direction, and can assume a streamlined configuration to avoid excess loading in extreme conditions.”
Both the bioWAVE and bioSTREAM are currently being tested off the coasts of a couple of islands in Tasmania. Plans are in place for 250kW, 500kW, and 1000kW systems. So in the future if you see something massive swaying just underneath the waves, don’t freak out. It may just be a bioWAVE making the power to blend your pina colada later on.
The Good: An underwater ‘non-fish threatening’ power generation system that is less prone to damage from adverse ocean conditions. More easily deployable than some other ocean-based renewable energy systems. Power output capacities are limited only by the number of systems installed.
The Bad: Years away from real world commercial use. Energy generation would benefit only those relatively close to coastal areas. Though projected to be lower than comparable systems, the actual costs involved in installing these systems are still unknown.
The Bottom-Line: A seemingly more attractive candidate for ocean-based renewables. Hopefully it’s still early enough in the ocean-based renewable game for BioPower to get the attention and interest it deserves.
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