SIE-CAT - Wave Energy Accumulator

Visions:

The almost limitless supply of wave energy on our oceans and large bodies of water is powered by the sun, is totally sustainable, renewable, Green House Gas (GHG) emissions free, and cries out to be harvested by a viable technology.

The vision, at Solar Inspired Energy Inc, is that our unique and proprietary SIE-CAT Wave Energy Accumulator technology, and further patent enhancements, provides the key to the viable capture of this bountiful but elusive energy, providing Electricity, Hydrogen via electrolysis, and Potable Water via Reverse Osmosis. We look upon the exuberance of the ocean environment, not as a challenge, but rather as an opportunity. This limitless supply of ocean energy off Canada’s three shores will support the hydrogen economy, and lead society away from its dependence on hydrocarbons. The world’s supply of hydrocarbons needs to be preserved for more valuable commodities than as an internal combustion fuel.
The SIE-CAT technology will spawn the greatest industry, the Energy Industry, as society mines the ocean’s surface.

Goals:

 The conceptual deployment and utilization of the SIE-CAT Wave Energy Accumulator technology has already been recognized for its adherence to universally accepted engineering and physical laws. Design and deployment anywhere on the ocean’s surface can become reality in less time than the time frames for current regulatory and licensing hurdles.

In this time of world economic turmoil, speedy engineering assessments and government or private funding can have a very quick impact on job creation, and an exportable Canadian technology, not to mention addressing the global concerns of climate change due to the burning of fossil fuels. Society has little choice but to switch from a depleting hydrocarbon energy base to a sustainable, green, GHG emissions free, hydrogen/fuel cell base.

The SIE-CAT Wave Energy Accumulator technology was conceived by Joseph D. Sieber, B.Sc., P. Eng., and encouraged by the observations of the natural wave forces on floating objects. The initial paramount and guiding insights recognized that the energy in each wave of a uniform wave train was basically identical, that each wave needed to relinquish the maximum of its energy, and that this maximum energy had to be enlisted to drive the maximum possible power takeoff in a timely manner. To achieve this maximum power takeoff also meant that the least amount of the available wave energy was to be relegated to running the ancillary process. The question “what parameters promoted maximum energy capture’ led to the further several key insights to this technology. These key insights are the succinctly described attributes for air, a most plentiful commodity on earth, and are:

1. The substance should be light.
2. The substance should be quickly accelerated.
3. The substance should be elastic – to permit internal storage of energy.
4. The substance should have a low viscosity – to minimize internal friction losses.
5. The substance should be cheap.
6. The substance should be readily available.
7. The substance should be non-toxic.

These attributes plus the proprietary technology that engages a two phase process to wave energy capture enable a phase one that captures, accumulates, and elevates the energy level, and a phase two that provides for single point Wave Energy Conversion (WEC).

The above basic realities, and there are more, led to the following successes:

1/ Four US and UK patents, with a further patent pending in both countries, and three Canadian patents pending (refer to document on IP).

2/ We have fabricated a portable desktop demonstration unit that has allowed us to confirm and demonstrate that energy can be accumulated, by the maximum capturable increments of available energy. This accumulation of energy is achieved by compressing a gas incrementally to increase its potential energy. “one can increase the pressure of a gas (air) from 15pisa to 30psia, and equally easily from 215psia to 230psia with the same application of one’s energy utilizing the identical pump. This exact concept is directly transferable to the use of waves as the energy source, allowing each successive wave to yield its capturable individual content of energy.

3/ Joseph Sieber was the principal founder of Sieber Energy Inc. SEI Inc successfully performed a proof-of-concept wave tank demonstration, in May of 2005, at the Vizon Scitec facility of the University of British Columbia. This proof-of-concept demonstration further confirmed our wave energy accumulator technology.

4/ Three identical Sieber Energy Inc. prototype modules were tested and formally witnessed (by NRC-IRAP, B.C. Hydro, and others) and data recorded, with the test results displayed as output pressures. One foot waves with a period of 0.4 seconds were applied. The three identical Sieber Energy Inc. modules were tested in a series configuration in accordance with the patented technology. The output pressures from each module were measured, relative to the external atmosphere, and recorded as simultaneous readings. The pressures recorded allowed a calculation of the accumulated energy. The recorded pressures of 5.68, 15.32, and 33.62psig, represent potential energy capture of 26.88 watts, 22.87 watts, and 21.11 watts respectively, for a total energy capture of 70.86 watts.

Solar Inspired Energy Inc., Sustainable Energy from Ocean Waves, is a technology development company that seeks to sell or license its patented Intellectual Property to qualified stakeholders, ensuring timely commercialization.

The SIE-CAT Wave Energy Accumulator provides a renewable, sustainable, GHG emissions free technology, as an option to replace depleting hydrocarbon based energy.

This next generation technology, when commercialized, will combat Global Warming by offering a cost effective means of capturing and storing wave energy from the world’s oceans and large bodies of water. Energy of compression can be stored from an entire wave energy farm before single wave energy conversion (WEC) is performed. This introduces magnitude of scale energy conversion to supply grid connected load at 5 to 7 cents per kWh based on the Carbon Trust methodology calculations.

This unique technology can be deployed anywhere on the ocean’s surface beyond the surf zone, is totally linear in its application, and is capable of supplying grid connected load. The three major products are Electricity, Hydrogen via electrolysis, and/or Potable Water using Reverse Osmosis. Near shore deployment (less than 10km) allows shore-based WEC.

SIE Inc. now has a suite of four patents in the US and UK, with a fifth patent pending.
There are three patents pending in Canada.

It has become an accepted reality that global warming and climate change, with ever greater and more severe weather fluctuations, is the result of human activity brought on by escalating use of fossil fuels and depletion of the earth’s natural defenses of photosynthesis. The SIE-CAT Wave Energy Accumulator technology can address the first of these human activities if we can stick-handle around the many special interest groups who have a vested interest in the status quo.

Environment:

How does the SIE-CAT Wave Energy Accumulator technology influence the environment?
Most directly, by ushering in the Hydrogen economy, we can gradually replace all fossil fuel use, and thereby reduce our Green House Gas (GHG) emissions. The internal combustion engine would be replaced with fuel cells and electric drives. The massive coal fired generating stations would be replaced with distributed generation utilizing fuel cells. Judicious deployment of this technology as breakwaters provides for safe harbors and a reduction of shoreline erosion. Near-shore deployment also allows water treatment by reverse osmosis.

From a deployment perspective, all materials are GHG emissions free, with minor effect during the manufacturing process.

Deployment must obviously consider and compromise with traditional fishing grounds, pleasure craft and recreational activities, effects on marine life, shipping lanes, and other navigation considerations. In fact, it is anticipated that the areas of designated energy farms would become a natural protected fish habitat.

The modular design of the SIE-CAT Wave Energy Accumulator allows on-site maintenance and individual component replacement.

The surface components can survive impacts with vessels that stray into an energy farm area.

Inadvertent destruction of a SIE-CAT module would release nothing more than compressed air into the environment. THERE IS NO POLUTION.

The deployment and maintenance vessels can be powered by the green energy produced by this technology. Decommissioning is easily accomplished, leaving behind only the inert environmentally benign concrete anchor.

Society:

Our current dependence on oil, during the last century, and the coal-fired Industrial Revolution of the previous 2 centuries, combined are but a blip in the evolution of society. It remains a question whether society can voluntarily wean itself off fossil fuels before they are depleted, while we have a choice, or whether the climate change and smog we are causing will destroy the living planet and make life, as we have briefly known it, un-bearable. Hydrocarbons ushered in an easy throw-away lifestyle without regard to the damage created. As a society we need to live more responsibly and be more accountable for our actions.