Austrailia is working on a desalination plant due to the water shortage they are
experiencing.

Perth, Western Australia, is considered the most remote city on the planet. And
one thing they are running out of, like much of drought declared Australia, is
fresh drinking water.

They are currently working on a plan to cut the amount of energy it takes to
run it. They have considered using the wind. There is a new alternative that is
being looked at by inventor Alan Burns. He teamed up with Seapower Pacific
(Carnegie) who have invested $10 million to get his idea on the market. His
invention is called CETO.

How Does CETO Work?
Matter Network has as good a description as any of how CETO works:

Long columns — multiple individual submerged units — are anchored to the
sea floor, and sway in unison with the motion of passing waves. The columns drive
pumps, which in turn pressurize seawater that is delivered on-shore through a
pipeline on the ocean floor. Each 125-unit Ceto farm can make enough power for
15,000 households.

The CETO wave power converter is the first unit to be fully-submerged and to
produce high pressure seawater from the power of waves.

By delivering high pressure seawater ashore, the technology allows either zero-
emission electricity to be produced (similar to hydroelectricity) or zero-emission
freshwater (utilising standard reverse osmosis desalination technology). It also
means that there is no need for undersea grids or high voltage transmission nor
costly marine qualified plants.

CETO units are fully submerged and permanently anchored to the sea floor meaning
that there is no visual impact as the units are out of sight. This also assists
in making them safe from the extreme forces that can be present during storms.
They are self-tuning to tide, sea state and wave pattern, making them able to
perform in a wide variety of wave heights and in any direction. CETO units are
manufactured from steel, rubber and hypalon materials, all proven for over 20
years in a marine-environment.

The CETOs are relatively simple to manufacture and transport. An independent
technology assessment says the concept has significant potential and more trials
are now underway with commercial units planned for 2009.

Way to go! Now this is way cool!

Tags: alan burns, currents, desalination plant, doe, electric, electrical, electricity, electrics, emissions, energy, extreme forces, floors, goodness, hydroelectricity, hypalon, ideas, inventing, invention, marketers, matter network, ocean floor, oceans, perth western australia, plants, power, power converter, sea floor, sea state, seas, seawater, steel, storms, visual impact, voltage transmission, water, water shortage, wave heights, wave pattern, wave power, wind, work matter, zero emission

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