There is a lot of incredible engineering packed into this, I'd love to hear your thoughts on it! Also, don't forget to check out Onshape for FREE: Onshape.pro/Ziroth - You won't regret giving it a try!

Keeping the barnacles and fouling growth controlled is going to be a continuous war. Ask any sea ship company. The inertial mass as the driver for the return stroke is smart. The nice shiny slides etc. and complex gear box strike me as long term maintenance issues though. I am watching this with interest.

A few thoughts; 1. The idea is brilliant and it is a direction we all should investigate. Harvesting Sun and Moon’s energy directly is the most environmentally friendly methods. 2. Like many new/ old ideas, they will require time to mature the technology/ engineering to become an everyday thing. Train was, airplane was and cars were all discarded with their humble beginning. 3. There are many engineering challenges. Survivability is not just short term but also a long term issue. There are power plants that has been running for decades, not many sea vessels have a lifespan longer than 40 years. Composite hulls tend to last less (glass fibre tents to last 15-25 years) and they tend to leak fine glass particles to surrounding areas when they deteriorate over time, which is another cause for concern. Some people commented on foul growth, namely barnacles, the outside growth may have less impact but internal growth (they can grow inside too) and subsequent crushing may lead to particle (many of beach sands are crushed sea shells) interference with the gear mechanism and generator. As we all know, water, dust and electricity does not go well with each other. 4. Debris impact etc does not concern me as much, as we can come up with simple structures to protect the buoy. On the other hand, the buoy can be placed near hazardous shipping routes with small lights on top to guide ships. All in all, these are more manageable issues. 5. The real problem is cost. Also fluctuation of power generation. The biggest set back of current renewable energy ideas is the unpredictable power generation and weather dependency. To my best and humble knowledge, sea has its own seasons. Obviously, they will choose the best site for installation yet seasonality is part of nature we cannot control or change. It is surprising that they did not mention about it. 6. Finally, previous experience with multi billion dollar wind farm left me baffled with inefficiencies and limitations. This direction appears a lot more promising than many of the wind farm or solar farm ideas.

My grandfather made a wave generator on his boat, it was just a generator (electric motor of some sort I think?), with weights and springs. it created electricity when offshore with engines off. It worked.

Didn’t know wave energy had been investigated for so long

One major problem with many wave-driven generators or anything in relatively slow-moving water is barnacles weighing everything down over time or interfering with moving parts. Anything you permanently install at sea that requires buoyancy or exposed underwater moving parts will likely need to have the barnacles periodically scraped off and an anti-stick coating re-applied.

The best thing about this system is that the corrosive environment is totally sealed out of both the electrical AND mechanical components, ensuring a long and reliable life. Brilliant!

I had this idea too about 15 years ago, so I calculated the maximum yield during a vacation on Tenerife (I have a Masters degree in mechanical engineering). The waves around Tenerife look great, but even there they're about 2m high and arrive every 10s. To catch the top of a wave efficiently, the diameter of the buoi maxes out at around 3m. This resulted in about 5kW power per buoi, so you need about 1000 buois to generate as much as 1 off-shore wind turbine. This is why I gave up on the idea...

In the vast expanse where oceans roar, A revolution breaks upon the shore. CorPower's buoy, with ingenuity rare, Unlocks the power of waves with flair. Inspired by nature's timeless design, It harnesses energy, a feat divine. With bio-inspired engineering in its stride, It rides the waves, a renewable tide. Three times more energy, it deftly extracts, From ocean swells, in rhythmic acts. A beacon of hope in the quest for green, It paints a future, serene and clean. No longer bound by winds that blow, Or sunbeams that come and go, Wave energy rises, a force untamed, A beacon of progress, forever acclaimed. With costs set to plummet, as innovation soars, CorPower's buoy opens untapped doors. A new standard in renewable might, Shining brightly in sustainability's light. So let us hail this wave-powered dream, A vision of tomorrow, where possibilities gleam. For in the heart of the ocean's embrace, Lies the promise of a greener, brighter space.

The system seems well designed. However, I have some doubts about the longevity as there are a lot of parts in it that may all be susceptible to corrosion and wear. And a footer like this has to be really sturdy to withstand high wind load.

Excellent breakdown of the C4's engineering and testing. Your ability to make these technical topics engaging is outstanding!

Each of your episodes is jam-packed with interesting information I didn't know I wanted to know! Always a pleasure to watch; I expect your channel to do VERY well! Thanks for your efforts!

Also in Denmark we have tried to make systems for wave energy. None has made it past Project state! We depend on the still larger windmills now built in the North Sea and intended to make huge islands far out, with farms of mills producing absurd amounts of electricity!

These can easily be placed within (long) swimming distance of a shoreline where marine traffic is a non issue. Also serves as a good "hey, beachgoers, stay inside the bouys" kinda reminder. California should be all over this.

Interesting design, I hope it passes the installation tests. I really like the image near the end of the video of mixed offshore wind and the CorPower buoys. Why not fill the space between giant wind towers (where reasonable) with more power generation that can share the infrastructure to get the power ashore.

Wow, that is the best solution for sea wave energy I ever saw

Best video on the topic I`ve seen! You have done your homework here (not to mention your other videos)! And that`s coming from someone who was involved with wave energy for 15 years! I do think that CorPower is hands-down the winner in this niche, however I cannot see it competing with Floating Offshore Wind as the interest, money, and O&G experience has shifted there in part because of all the repeated overpormises and ego-driven failures of the WE industry in the past 50 years. Let`s hope CorPower can break the trend! At this point we need all the renewable electricity we can get. One thing that you did not mention (but which of course is repeated ad nauseam by propoenents is that wave energy is less intermittant than wind or solar. And where did you get the LCOE figure at 10:25 from? Keep up the good work!

Thank you Ziroth. The engineering looks like a lot of fun for this engineer.

May I suggest more random distribution and some long- necked sea bird puppet head? This is obviously for aesthetics.Loved the article and thanks.

A low LCOE is nice but I wish you looked into the capacity factor. If it's higher than wind power then it could be a game changer as it lowers the need for batteries.

Thanks for this video! Extremely well done and thoughtful. I would think another advantage of wave energy is it's fairly steady with a much lower level of intermittency than wind or solar. Maybe not quite good enough to call it a reliable base load, but I would think pretty close.

I did not expect it to be that big, crazy stuff

Great video. The potential energy in waves is so huge. Additionally, enough wave energy devices could potentially help with storm surges too. Although that hypothesis may prove unattainable. In short, once wave energy technology is reliable and financially feasible, it'll be a game changer. Very little need for any other energy sources.

Great video! Thanks for your hard work.

Such an incredible technology! Thanks for another great video!

Well done. Good content. Good video length choice. On the strength of this I'll definitely take a look at your other videos.

Just realized they do not have a stand alone cad design program, anything you create on their site they can steal from you. not a smart place to be working on inventions or idea's you don't want stolen.

Brilliant. Thank you!

This is one of the best videos about Wave energy. CorPower is an invention based on trusted and well handeled theory. This is uncommon with most other wave energy videos. However CorPowers technology is based on a very sophisticated working principle, with constantly tuned mass damper. Most people will not be able to understand why CorPower is more efficient than most other wave energy converters. I am a machine engineer, but must admit that the working principle is beyond my understanding. But have been told by an expert that CorPower is one of a very few projects that may succeed. I dont expect wave energy to be a commercial succes ever. But I have a very short list of the two most promising projects: Wave Piston and CorPower. All other projects are without any chance of succes. And are just a vaste of money and time.

Great video, great tech, great sponsor, thanks!

Thanks for sharing, always found wave energy an interesting technology. Living in Central New York I’ve often thought it would be a good addition to our power supply mix if it was to be implemented in Lake Ontario. It a very choppy lake with plenty of available power without the complexity of being in sea water. I’m sure other Great Lakes would likely be just as likely for successful systems like this.

I've been following wave technology for a long time. This looks promising. Excellent presentation as usual.

Really great, well worth a watch. I lookfoward to see acres of these around the UK underneath the wind turbines

Nice description, it looks like a promising design. I've been interested in wave power for a long time, there's so much of it, and most people live along coasts. The trick is good mooring seafloor attachment and stopping corrosion. Logistically these look good, drop and tow.

Waves make me happy cause they are always waving.

Some people are commenting about barnicles and other sea life things that like to stick onto surfaces like boat hulls, it's a fair point and I was wondering if there's any "no maintenance/minimal maintenance" and if not, what would the costs be to have divers clean the bouys? Also if this whole system becomes wide spread, would that not create jobs for diving cleaners?

Great Vid- cheers Z.

Great video Ryan. I've not seen a natural energy harvester design quite like this before, very clever! I feel like there's a recurring theme of mimicking/getting inspiration from natural things within engineering (in this case the heart). Also, whilst the aesthetics of large wind turbines in the ocean is subjective... there's no debate that these have a far smaller visual footprint, and in my opinion are therefore much less intrusive of the landscape visually.

I got a wave power idea: I comprises of a large pill shaped float (the size of a small house) that is half full of water. It's attached to a strong arm (like a cistern float) and on a pier above the water level. Where there are two disc shaped generators (like on some direct drive wind turbines) with one for upstroke and one for downstroke. The water in the pill shaped float does the downstrokes. It's basically just one moving part and built strong, should last a while without much maintainence. Also have easily replacement of wearing parts to keep maintainence cost down. And it should be possible to empty the water and raise the float in wild weather conditions. And refilling to half full should not be too difficult autonomously. It's about half full to make the upstroke and downstroke the same power and also making the maximum downstroke power, with the same power upstroke. Obviously way less than half full when you include it's empty weight. But the combined weight would be half of the buoyancy of the air inside the float. That's what I would technically mean by "half full". I like it cos it would seem to be rugged, powerful and low maintenance. I tend to shy away from gears and sliding pumps etc. Too many parts for wave power cos of the inherent high maintenance. They go for ever without stopping, continually wearing for ever! Designers have to keep that in mind when designing waver power systems. As soon as I saw the direct drive wind turbines I immediately started work on my design, being stoked about direct driver generators for wave power! 😅 They are slow RPM and only one moving part. A win, win for wave power! 😅

Fascinating, and an excellent presentation.

@Thunderf00t how does this system look to you. Long time viewer. I am really trying to learn your analysis style.

Fascinating! Many thanks 🙂🙏🏼

As a portuguese I have been following this project closely on the news, it seems very promising, the portuguese state should invest in this.

Title: "How This Buoy JUST UNLOCKED Unlimited Wave Energy" First 20 seconds of the video: "But that COULD all be set to change"

This is an efficient and well thought out design🏆 🤔My question is how does it deal with “fouling” (growth of marine organisms) on the sliding cylinders, I can see how constant friction would deter accumulation, but what about the low areas that would only be traveled on with high oscillating waves❓

Great with some qualified focus on this exciting area of renewal energy 👍

Excellent well edited video.

Very nice. What about tides, waves work at different heights all the time - does the tether need to change lengths all the time? Or it just works at high tide?

The Achilles heel of renewal energy calculations is maintenance and decommission cost. Usually these wind, solar and wave technologies are in the mercy of weather and their live span is short, 15-25 years in real life. They are installed on hard to reach places thus making both costs high. For some reason, decommissioning costs are not taken in to account, even though they matter more with these compared to most fossil and nuclear plants with 50+ year life.

I've had a simpler idea in mind for a long time: a massive permanent magnet is driven upwards through a coil by a wave, and it drops back again via gravity to also generate power. A 'linear generator' in other words. I doubt that life would ever that simple in practice of course but the concept does have the benefit of easier maintenance and possibly manufacturing too.

How does the system handle the lateral forces of the ocean waves? Does the anchor or spring pneumatic system inside the buoy damped these forces and only allow vertical motion?

Thank you for an interesting video. I hope this time it will actually work! I'm a little curious how the energy is brought on shore and how this ties in to the whole intermittency/storage issue. Can combinations with wind/solar mitigate that issue?

One challenge I see is how to make all the generators in phase with each other, as they all have to feed the same grid. The phase of the wave under each buoy is not synchronized with that under the other buoys. How did the engineers tackle this problem?

The tuning is like MPPT on solar panels. The system load is adjusted to match what the driver can push at that moment.

A clever idea. I cant think how adjusting their resonant frequency to match the waves could be achieved relatively easily with any other type of mechanism. Also, apart from needing to access them for maintenance, I imagine these could be packed closely together without affecting one another, unlike wind turbines.

And yes, phasing with the period of the sea matched with the device would indeed greatly increase its efficiency. Very cool.

I had an idea for a wave generator system when I first saw one of those "octopus" amusement park rides in operation. I realized immediately that if a barge/comparment was perched atop a smart network of floating footpods, the wave action could drive pistons that could siphon off energy.

Seems like a great idea. It will live or die by LCOE (mentioned around 9:00 ). The cost per MWh they claim is at least kinda interesting, particularly if they can get the cost down at scale.

An excellent job was done 😊

Netflix: Are you still watching? Someone’s daughter:

This is without a doubt my favorite wave energy concept. I really hope that the ideas that are promising just get funding and they start giving it a go because I'm so tired of seeing great advancements but everyone only talks about the money aspects holding it back from happening.. If we don't start making new things and putting money into them, then of course fossil fuel companies will continue to argue that their option is best and cheapest. I wish we could commit to modern advanced nuclear energy options as well

Are there estimations from third parties about the system's potential effects (during long term operation, not just installation) on marine life? And can anything dislodge the anchoring system (e.g. earthquakes)? Now regarding actual practicality: Half of my small country and ~90% of its population are by the sea, and calculating the very peak power generation of these (the average is not quoted) against an average yearly electricity consumption here (as if excess power from times of lower consumption can be stored) we would require over 4,000 buoys in operation. Calculated for real time peak electricity consumption during the summer results in 25,000 buoys required. Considering the peak power generation could very well be double the average, I can't imagine having 10,000 such giant buoys along our ~170km shoreline in order to possibly replace all other energy production methods (again, with a hypothetical energy storage method, as covering peaks in real time would require many more tens of thousands). I can't even imagine these supplementing just 25% of our energy requirements as that would still require around 20 buoys per kilometer throughout the entire shoreline.

I am impressed at your passion on the subject matter Sir. Good luck with your endeavors. Peace v

Awesome Video sir!

What about the maintenance issue of it rusting and the salt destroying the inner tech within?

VERY interesting. Promising! You say the pneumatic system works with "air instead of fluid." Air IS fluid. In common usage, sometimes fluid DOES mean liquid as opposed to solid or gas, but this is a science and technology channel so it seems right to stick to the more exact usage. Sorry to nitpick. But I really like this video and your other work as well. Thanks! From Wiktionary: Noun fluid (countable and uncountable, plural fluids) 1) Any substance which can flow with relative ease, tends to assume the shape of its container, and obeys Bernoulli's principle; a liquid, gas or plasma. [How I suggest the term be used in science and tech pieces] 2) A liquid (as opposed to a solid or gas). [How the term was used in this video] 3)(specifically, medicine, colloquial, typically in the plural) Intravenous fluids.

looks interesting, those sliding salt water seals though, I have longevity concerns. do they have a way to pressurize the buoy?

Excellent presentation this looks like a much more ecological solution than windmills.

Interesting, didn't hear about this company here in Sweden, but seems this tech have potential

Now that's a smart solution. Hope it takes off!

Great video I really enjoy this information! Also the whole time my ears heard you say "Boy" instead of "Buoy." xD

Brilliant engineering and very well explained. The big problem with wave energy, like wind power, is that it isn't predictable. There are sometimes long periods of calm. That is why tidal stream energy is so much better. As long as the moon keeps going round the earth the tides flow around our coasts twice a day.

Looks a much simpler and self-contained solution than many. If they can be successfully attached to the sea bed, maintenance could be quite low. A ship with a crane could just up lift for on-land refurbishment and attach a newly serviced unit. I wonder in what depth they can be deployed?

What a great innovation!

love it! Where can I get one?

would this absorb storm wave height and provide a percentage of protection to sensitive coastal areas prone to erosion?

It would be interesting to hear about how the units deal with tidal shifts. With the rigid mooring systems, it appears that they only work at a set depth. That would mean that with a high tide or a low tide, the units would be inoperable due to being over extended/retracted and would just lock in place. There would have to me some way of controlling the length of the mooring rod connecting the units to the seabed and I don't remember this being covered by the video.

I love the generators but think the anchors and cables should be built by a state or coalition of entities that are focused on building new habitat. Building an artificial reef system that works as an anchor and transmission network for offshore wind, solar and wave energy would allow unlimited small players to enter the market by allowing them to focus on their products because 95% of the time and cost is eliminated. Combining the offshore habitat creation with the offshore energy needs allows us to build habitat on the scale needed and to have it all funded by transmission fees. Adding fresh water lines opens up additional options from offshore desalination, where brine can be used in kelp farms that are fed and cooled with artificial upwelling or and or diluted, to allowing offshore transport between cities. ( a us west coast infrastructure reef from LA to Washington state connects electric grids and water systems) A continuous reef with multiple structures reaching the surface, fish farms, kelp farms, shellfish farms and the entire reef developed as a managed preserve would dramatically improve water quality and fisheries. The reef allows unlimited power and water to come from the ocean and the CO2 the reef naturally removes from the ocean is enough to significantly change the alkalinity along the entire coast.

Is recycling solved for these composite materials?

How it will be developed if it's so much more expensive than the wind power?

There's sort of like a perpetual motion taint to wave energy that makes it harder to achieve. Moving water, thats great. Reversing direction, not so great. But with the gearboxes, like an automatic watch, we can engineer past that limitation

Great vid, thanks. I'd have loved a few more figures, not just LCOE, but predictability, area of sea needed, ability to work amidst wind turbines and so forth. Well worth another video. Oh! and potential for suitable sites, worldwide. Please.

With the substantial infrastructure of large wind turbines already working well, perhaps it could be efficient to have one machine that uses wind and wave power, or to have wave power mechanisms that hug the base of existing wind turbines?

Impact on navigability of waters if scaled up?

Buoy farms might also affect beach movement by slowing down wave action or disrupting currents.

At the beginning my man's said "comes quick and fast" 😂

How does this system accomdate tides? Off the coast of Europe, these can run 7-10m.

Might work for preventing coastal erosion too. A few rows of those parallel to the coast should be able level the waves.

How well do these things scale? Looks like a great system to combine with wind.

What's the ROI on those springs and the entire system, including transmission cables/pipes? Aren't rotating shafts better at staying waterproof?

Great! Can’t wait to never see this in the real world! ☹️

Actually, you could have a much longer tube like structure, and capture the energy of those 18.5 metre high waves as well. That would 1. produce much more energy, 2. allow for continuous operation in all weathers, and 3. act as a slight damper to such storms, marginally reducing their destructive damage on the nearby shoreline.

600kw from a device that expensive to construct is devastating.

I still like the CETO system. One of it's main advantages is it's anchored to the seabed. The corpower system is on the surface which makes it vulnerable to storms and shipping, also a bit of an eyesore.

Interesting video but you'd need a lot of these 600KW wave generators to replace a single 8MW offshore wind turbine. You also need more connections to join them all up. Also remember that anything immersed in sea water will suffer from corrosion - the generators in offshore turbines are generally around 100m above the sea but these are actually in the sea. The fiberglass shell of the device certainly reduces the LCOE but will it survive impacts with debris that can be floating in the sea? Will it be equipped with a pump in the event of a puncture and will it notify controllers that something needs to be fixed. Do they work in all sea states (other than flat calm)?

great - adding a bouy around the tower of every windturbine seems like a no brainer too...

Since waves get there energy from the lunar interaction with earth that causes tides, if we take buoy energy to the exteme and fill the ocean with them, isnt there a danger of causing unintended side effects in the same way that planets that are interacting through gravity can steal spin energy from each other? the buoys get their energy from the waves, the waves get it from the tides, the tides get it from gravitational interaction with the moon, so the buoy energy is essentially sapping the energy of the gravitational interaction of the earth and moon.

Hello, Ryan. I love the video so far, but I am just after the 4:00 mark and wanted to mention that air is a fluid but not a liquid. Thank you.

one look was enough to understand the genius of this design, this is awesome. wonder how much more simple we could make this design so much cheaper material could be used so even third world countries can utilize it. third world countries have the manpower but lack the funds for the parts. this looks much better to simplify than a windmill.

There was tide mill's in East Anglia since the medieval period, but nothing wave powered :)