Swimmers Create Enough Wave Power To Keep The Lights On

Hi there peeps...

This seems to me like another step in the right direction...

A sophomore at Wake Forest University discovered that waves made by swimmers in the pool produce enough energy to power 10, 100 Watt lightbulbs for a day.. It might only be a small amount of power at the moment. But if all pools accepted this technology after it is tuned and tweaked it would help.. just a little bit.

In the world of clean technology, we often see new renewable energy ideas that could provide large amounts of power, but we also see lots of ideas for generating smaller amounts of energy for say charging devices or powering lighting. This latest idea from a Wake Forest University sophomore, is one of the latter. Yinger 'Eagle' Jin has been testing a wave energy harnessing technology he built in the school's pool to see how much energy swimmers could generate during the day.

The university says, "Jin constructed an oscillating water column, one of the most productive wave energy converters available, to test the amount of electricity that could feasibly be produced by the pool's waves. It uses a large volume of moving water (in the case of Wake Forest's Reynolds Gym pool, the waves generated by daily swimmers) as a piston in a cylinder. Air is forced out of the column as a wave rises and fresh air is drawn in as the wave falls. This movement of air turns a turbine at the top of the column, which ultimately converts the wave energy to electricity."

"We are talking a very small scale, but recreational swimmers produce a decent amount of waves," Jin said. "The concept is similar to the idea that at a regular gym you have exercise bikes that are powered by someone spinning the pedals."

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The last few years there has been many many innovative inventions created by the younger generation. Which is fantastic...! So if we want to keep creating and helping ourselves and this planet which we call home. Then I believe it is truly incredibly important that we leave our home better for future generations....



Peace
Fluff

Lol, not the kind of "swimmers" I thought this was going to be about. I was thinking, "Man, you guys churn out some powerful sperm!"

This is very cool, though. I bet we'll see something like this start popping up in cities eventually, an alternate power source you can count on in summer months. Want to cool off in the pool? Help power the A/Cs at home while you're at it!

reply to post by Nyiah


Loool...!


Well imagine that..! Lol no these are the people swimmers. I also wondered if there was anyone out there using similar technology to harness energy in gyms...? LOADS of people go the gym. That way whilst exercising they power the gym itself..! That would be a better option.