OCEAN WAVES INSTEAD OF STEAM ENGINES.

King Country Chronicle, Volume V, Issue 313, 19 November 1910, Page 2

OCEAN WAVES INSTEAD OF STEAM ENGINES.

WORK THAT IS BEING DONE. ELECTRIC LIGHT PROM THEADRIATIC SEA. A good many surprising things come from Italy in this progressive age, and among them is an apparatus recently put to work at Rimini to transform the waves of the sea into a motive force. With this apparatus the first electric lamp has been made to glow with power derived from the waves. In this case it is not even necessary to wait upon the tides, for in the Adriatic there are no tides—that sea being too small in area to produce sensible undulations under the impulse of the tidal forces of the sim and the moon. But in this case even the winds suffice, keeping the water in a state of continual undulation, and it is these undulations, which represent enormous energy, that are utilised by Captain Pirandello's apparatus. Captain Pirandello sets a mechanically connected buoy afloat by the shore. That buoy is kept at a constant depth in the water, and, rising and falling with the undulations it transfers to the related machinery the ceaseless motion, of the sea. To guard against the variations in the force and height of the waves, a device is provided for storing up compressed air—compressed by the force of the waves —and when the water is relatively calm this stored-up energy is utilised to continue the working of the apparatus. Thus the Adriatic, the sea of romance, is made to put the harness of modern mechanical science on its own back.

But other countries but Italy are awake to the great problem. In England Mr. William Snee has invented a different apparatus, which as yet is only shown in the form of a working model. But it does its work, and shows what the system, or one based en similar principles, would be capable of with the power of the ocean behind it. The incoming water is passed through a series of chambers round a horizontal water wheel, which is thus set in motion. The chambers are so constructed that whether the water is flowing in one direction or the other, it always imparts its force to the wheel. Mr. Snee has the tides in view as the ultimate source of power for driving his apparatus. In this he appeals to the same source of energy as that invoved by a Yankee inventor, Mr. John Hall, Jr.

But the American has hit upon an entirely different method of application. Put in a word, as he describes his machine, it consists essentially of a huge tumbler or tank inverted in the water where the tide rises and falls. This inverted tank or chamber is held rigidly in position, so that the undulation of the tide does not vary its level. It stays fixed, and as the water rises within the air is driven out at the top. Of course, the air is under powerful compression, being allowed to escape only through a narrow pipe which conveys it to a compressed air motor, which is thus put into operation.

VACUUMS FOR POWER MADE BY TIDES.

Like Captain Pirandello's machine, this apparatus also operates independently of the direction of motion of the water. When the tide recedes

and the water, consequently, falls in the inverted tank, the air is not allowed to reenter, and ;thus a vacuum is formed in the tank. This is then utilised to run the motor by regulating the influx of air into the vacuum through the supply pipe. Given a sufficiently capacious tank, the power thus obtained may be very great. There are coast places where the tide rises and falls alternately sight or ten feet, so that very large reservoirs of compressed air could be used. Of course, they must be very strong and stable. Other forms of tide mills consist of large reservoirs, placed beside the beach and filled by the incoming tide. The reservoir being full, the water, covering several acres, is allowed to flow through raceways, returning to the sea when the tide is out. Water wheels or turbines placed in the raceways are driven by the flowing water. Special turbines having a capacity of 300-horse-power have thus been employed. Another method dispenses with the reservoir and employs large water wheels imrnsrsed in a tideway, so that the flow of the water, now in one direction and now in the other, drives the wheels.

The chief problem at present is, how to construct such apparatus as that of Pirandello, for instance, on a sufficiently extensive scale. Gravitation solves the problem for us in the case of great waterfalls. We have only to place our turbines under the falling water, and the vast, connected machines begin to hum, driving factories and turning out a thousand necessities of civilised life. The water of the rivers has been lifted upon the mountain tops by the sun's heat first transforming the ocean's surface into vapour, which rises and flies over the land. Then gravitation brings it back to sea level, and, as it descends, its power is at our disposal. When the sun and moon lift the tides, gravitation is the primary agent, and the water, instead of going up miles in the air as vapour, to he again condensed, simply rises a few feet in the liquid form. But the amount of water thus disturbed in level is indefinitely greaterand the inherent power is greater • only, up to the present, we have hardly done more than fully realise what a boundless source of power is thus thrown at our feet.—"Popular Science Siftings,"-