Snake Sidewinds Energy from the Sea

How cool is this. A giant rubber tube may help pump affordable electricity from ocean waves. The snakelike design is called the Anaconda. It's ultra-simple, cheap to manufacture and maintain, and could help deliver clean energy from the sea.

Here's how it works. The Anaconda is closed at both ends, filled with water, and anchored below the surface. One end faces the oncoming waves. When a wave hits, the water squeezes the Anaconda, causing a bulge wave to form inside the tube. The bulge wave runs through the snake at the same time the ocean wave runs along the outside of the tube, squeezing the tube further and causing the bulge wave to grow bigger. Eventually the bulge wave triggers a turbine at the far end of the Anaconda. The power produced by the turbine is then fed to shore via a cable.

Confused? Watch the video.

The Anaconda is still only a small-scale prototype. It's funded by the UK's Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, in collaboration with the Anaconda's inventors and with its developer, Checkmate SeaEnergy. Engineers at the University of Southampton are embarking on large-scale experiments and mathematical studies, working towards full-scale implementation.

Never underestimate the intellectual power mustering on all fronts. We may yet immunize the future against ourselves.

Julia Whitty is Mother Jones' environmental correspondent, lecturer, and 2008 winner of the Kiriyama Prize and the John Burroughs Medal Award.