Water Pipes That Generate Electricity!

[Jude Iam]

Portland Just Installed Water Pipes That Generate Electricity!

• News
• Science & Tech

Feb 23, 20125 1897

John Vibes, True Activist
Lucid Energy, a Portland-based energy company, has come up with a brilliant idea to harness electricity from the water that flows through a city’s pipes. Small turbines are installed into the pipes which send the energy collected from the flowing water into a power generator.
“It’s pretty rare to find a new source of energy where there’s no environmental impact. But this is inside a pipe, so no fish or endangered species are impacted. That’s what’s exciting,” Gregg Semler, CEO of Lucid Energy, said in a statement.
“We have a project in Riverside, California, where they’re using it to power streetlights at night. During the day, when electricity prices are high, they can use it to offset some of their operating costs,” Semler says.
Lucid’s new power-generating pipes have recently been installed in Portland, where they are powering many different public spaces throughout the city. This is even more efficient than many other renewable forms of energy because these pipes can harness electricity 24 hours a day, 7 days per week, in any weather.



“We made electrical infrastructure really smart over the last 20 to 25 years, but the same hasn’t happened in water. They didn’t really know that the pipe burst until somebody from UCLA called. Our pipe can get indicators like pressure, a leading indicator for whether a pipe is leaking or not. So before it bursts and before we waste all the water, there are onboard information systems that water agencies can get to more precisely manage their infrastructure,” Semler said.
Sensors in the pipe can even monitor the quality of the water to ensure that it is safe to drink.

Semler said that this technology could be even more useful in remote areas that are farther away from central power grids.
“It’s a great source of remote power. So in places outside the city that don’t have an electrical grid, you’re able to use the system to generate energy. There’s a lot of energy in going into making sure we have safe clean drinking water. Our focus is really on helping water become more sustainable,” he said.
About the Author

John Vibes writes for True Activist and is an author, researcher and investigative journalist who takes a special interest in the counter culture and the drug war.

[podfish]

Lucid Energy, a Portland-based energy company, has come up with a brilliant idea to harness electricity from the water that flows through a city’s pipes. Small turbines are installed into the pipes which send the energy collected from the flowing water into a power generator....

these are pretty neat. There's a fair amount of discussion about them on some engineering trade fora. (ok, forums.. I'm not Roman). There's no free energy - these of course scavenge energy from the pumps and from gravity. And like all energy 'sources' they waste a bit in the conversion from moving water to electricity. But that just means they're not universally applicable - in the right places they work very well. A lot of the energy spent in moving water around a city is wasted anyway, so a careful choice of where and when to scavenge some of its kinetic energy makes a lot of sense. It's the kind of engineering we need more of in the future. It's also far safer than most energy transmission media. Even though it's not a lot of energy, it's still way cool. If you're in Portland, there's a nice park where some are out on display somewhere in the east part of the city past Mt. Tabor (I'm sketchy on exact directions...)