currents

Scientists at the University of Michigan are beginning the first large-scale test of a new technology that takes a common problem for oil platforms and turns it into a method for reliably generating clean electricity from ocean and river currents. They are working with the U.S. Navy to build a prototype in the Detroit River this year with the capacity to power a 20,000-square-foot building.

When word first surfaced of the VIVACE Converter (short for Vortex-Induced Vibration for Aquatic Clean Energy Converter), it sparked a flurry of pop-sci articles struggling to explain the fluid dynamics with anything remotely accessible to the public.

The concept—absorbing energy from a phenomenon called vortex-induced vibration (VIV)—has been likened to Leonardo Da Vinci’s research into “Aeolian Tones,” the infamous Tacoma Narrows Bridge disaster, and the device’s own sexy aquatic biomimetics: It imitates fish. Like fish, whose muscular power alone could not propel them at the speeds they travel, the invention harnesses forces created by a disrupted current.

Previous methods for collecting energy from currents, like turbines and water mills, required an average flow of five or six knots, while most of the earth's currents are slower than three knots.

VIVACE promises to generate power from these much slower flows.