Thursday 28 January 2016

Doctor doctor, is negative spring like a flux capacitor?



Many thanks to the reader who asked me the following question about the post on negative spring:

' I am a bit puzzled as to how two springs in series can exert a force at right angles to their longitudinal axis. Didn't the pair of springs (providing the negative spring) in the CorPower device sit at an angle in a Back to the Future "flux capacitor" type arrangement?'

Thursday 21 January 2016

Negative spring is a mysterious thing


Negative spring may well be the answer to making wave energy economic, so it would be good if it were less obscure and mysterious. This post describes what negative spring is, and how it can be used to control wave energy converters.

Tuesday 19 January 2016

Tidal is the new wave



The 2015 SuperGen annual assembly was forward-looking and upbeat. The recent closure of Abengoa and Aquamarine did not send out the same shockwaves as the demise of Pelamis and MCT a year earlier. Prof Robin Wallace warned that the biggest threat to marine energy was pessimism. So it was good to detect what can be best described as a determination to weather the present storm. There was a particularly high level of enthusiasm and ‘sexy science’ coming from tidal energy research, the highlights of which are worthy of sharing.