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duffmanhb t1_iv59ks9 wrote

This is kind of stupid... It's like saying I made the world's first hybrid nuclear-hydro plant, by putting a nuclear plant next to the Hoover Dam.

They also missed the opportunity to make a phallic design, so they don't even get partial credit.

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subterraniac t1_iv5lfvf wrote

I'm sure crusted-on salt is great for solar panel efficiency.

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Surur t1_iv5pew8 wrote

I commented on this device on futurology.

Its a great design - It appears they use plastic tubing and connections, which addresses the corrosion issue, and flexible solar panels lying on a large membrane.

The design appears to be cheap and robust and easy to replicate. It could even be cheaper than mounting them on land (no metal stands for example). By floating and cooling the solar panels with sea water, you can get up to 30% efficiency increases (they promise about 10% improvement).

Pairing them with wind turbines is actually a great idea, as they do not have to anchor them to the ocean floor, and of course they can connect easily to power transmission sources.

Rain probably dissolves the salt.

Here is a video showing the construction.

https://youtu.be/Y-4AtalLGTM

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Surur t1_iv5trag wrote

The wave energy generator would have to be a very simple and cheap design, because from what I can see this is a super-simple and cheap design currently.

Actually if they add rigid articulations with generators between each pad in a cluster, they could use the motion of the pads/waves to generate energy, a bit like how these generate energy from the up and down motion of the ocean.

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Surur t1_iv5vx1x wrote

If you look at the diagram, each big circle is a pad of solar cells, the green is a rigid linkage between each pad, and the purple circles are generators built into the hinges which generate power due to the relative up and down movement of each pad due to waves.

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fivestarusername t1_iv6aaks wrote

>It's like saying I made the world's first hybrid nuclear-hydro plant, by putting a nuclear plant next to the Hoover Dam.

I mean if you did it in a way that decreased the cost of energy for both then it would be newsworthy. Yeah the word "hybrid" feels weird but presumably they're sharing infrastructure like grid connections so they're not two completely separate plants that just happen to be close to one another.

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