Host: David Evans
Guests: Michael Henriksen | CEO | Wavepiston &
Dr. Steve Grasby | President | Geothermal Canada &
Dr. Greg Stone | Chief Ocean Scientist | The Metals Company
Category: 🤖 Technology | Water Powered Energy
Podcast’s Essential Bites:
[6:37] MH: “We have taken all the low hanging fruits of renewable energy, [but] we just need to add now. We need to add wave energy because it's a very large potential. […] We also need that to complement wind and solar […]. By having several renewable energy sources, […] it's better to stabilize the grid and have a total system view. […] At Wavepiston, we are working with the energy of the waves to convert them to something usable, via turbogenerator, to electricity. And we can also use the energy in the wave for desalination via reverse osmosis plants.”
[10:02] MH: “We take the energy from the waves and then we pressurize seawater. That pressured seawater is then transported via pressure pipe to a conversion station. And the interesting part here is that pressurized water can [be] used for at least two things. One is […] we can produce the electricity to the grid. The other interesting part of the pressured seawater […] is needed for reverse osmosis.”
[10:49] DE: “Not only does Wavepiston provide the opportunity for electricity generation from waves, but it also provides the opportunity to switch to seawater desalination, depending on the current need. Now, the theoretical potential of this wave energy is huge. It's been predicted to be from 20,000 terawatt hours to 80,000 terawatt hours. […] 20,000 terawatt hours is exactly how much we use for all of the electricity for the entire world. So we have 100% to 400% of the potential electricity that we would actually need. Now, of course, there's a lot of things that would need to go right. […] But wave energy does have a lot of potential to grow, and to play a role in our renewable energy future.”
[13:44] SG: “Wind and solar only work when it's sunny and windy out. […] Geothermal power plants run at about 95% efficiency. So they're just always on, always going. And the other aspect that’s attractive is that it's dispatchable, which means that you can quickly ramp up and down that power production. So we all know the electric rush hour or so people come home at the end of the day, and they all turn on the lights and turn on the oven around six o'clock. So you need this big increase in electrical generation to meet that demand. […] You can't just ramp up solar production, whereas geothermal you can.”
[14:45] DE: “Geothermal energy production is just our ability to capture and harness energy from down in the Earth's core or the Earth's mantle. […] The absolute center of the Earth's core sits at a very toasty 6,000 degrees Celsius, which is the same temperature as the surface of the sun. So the whole idea behind geothermal energy is to basically drill down very deep holes and pump water into these holes so that it can heat up. And when we bring it back up to the surface, then we can actually extract that heat and be able to use that to run a turbine or some other form of energy generation. And then we can pump the water right back in and restart the process.”
[17:14] DE: “We could probably get over 5,000 megawatts of energy right now using our current [geothermal] technology. And that's not factoring in the technological advances that are currently happening. So to put that in perspective, if you were to replace 5,000 megawatts of energy from a coal fired power plant every year, you're stopping 25 megatons of carbon dioxide emissions every year. Now, that would make a significant dent in our CO2 emissions.”
[22:30] GS: “[Polymetallic nodules] sit on the seafloor and they accumulate atoms of what's in the seawater, like a pearl does, very slowly. […] Every element on the periodic table that you learned in high school is in the ocean, it's in solution in the ocean. These nodules form and they reflect the relative abundances of the elements in the area of which they form. And it turns out in certain places, especially about halfway between Mexico and Hawaii there's a very high concentration of nickel, cobalt, manganese, and copper, which are all the metals we need for all these electric cars that are coming up. It's between a 600 and 1,000% increase in demand over the next 10-20 years.”
[23:31] GS: “There's zero waste in [mining polymetallic nodules]. This is 100% usable metal and what's not metal is non-toxic, and a perfect additive for cement. There's no waste, whereas in the traditional mining industry, it's 99% waste. […] And you can find enough of these [polymetallic nodules] in an area less than 1% of the bottom of the seafloor to supply humanity for hundreds of years.”
[25:40] DE: “The Metals Company […] is looking at collecting these polymetallic nodules that form at the bottom of the ocean. […] [They are] creating these collectors that would go along the bottom of [the ocean], and would use jets of water to be able to lift these nodules that are just sitting on the ocean floor, […] into the collector to separate it from any mud or any other particulates and allow the mud to return right back to the ocean floor. The nodules are then sent right back up to the surface, where it's then deposited into carrier vessels that will then carry those nodules back to be processed on land.”
Rating: 💧💧💧💧
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🕰️ 37 min | 🗓️ 06/08/2022
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