50 de nos besoins d energie grace aux vagues

This one's only for the die-hards.

My cravings for information on this stock has now plumbed new depths. In the absence of any new information from CNM or in the media, i came across this french article about Mauritius (Reunion Island is next door) and couldnt help but try a free web translator service to decipher it!

The warped translation tickled my sense of humour (it took me a while to work out "spaces" should be "waves"), but the article is a bit quirky in itself.

The last line says someone from CNM took a trip to Mauritius to brief the govt there...maybe something was "lost in translation" but you never know. But yes, it's time my friends and loved ones held an intervention.

Enjoy, or rather, apprécier!

For the french version see - http://www.defimedia.info/articles/2916/1/Developpement-durable--50--de-nos-besoins-denergie-grace-aux-vagues/Page1.html


Lasting development: 50 % of our needs of energy thanks to spaces

Imagine water wings seven metres in diameters immersed in three metres under the surface of the sea. The movement of spaces against these water wings operates turbines which pump water with very high pressure on the earth. Once on earth, the water in pressure is converted, thanks to appropriate motors, into electricity. That's how works the CETO Wave Energy Technology system, a new technique was developed by the Australian company Carnegie Corporation.

Preliminary experiments showed that this system is completely viable and appropriate for Maurice ", explains the professor Soodursun Jugessur, vice-chancellor and president of the UoM Council and Mauritius Research Council. Electricité of France (FRENCH ELECTRICITY COMPANY) buys rights, besides, to develop this technology in countries north of the Equator.

Our island, supports the professor Jugessur, is located in a favourable region where spaces of a height appropriated for this type of plan form throughout the year. Contrary to the aeolian or to solar energy, we shall be able to produce electricity persistently because we have vague 24 hours on 24 », he notices. With a kilometre of space in length, Maurice could produce 25 megawatts. "We could benefit from the same quantity of electricity if we pick up the energy of spaces on an area of a hectare ", the teacher Jugessur advances. Plan will be tested on five sites which will produce each 40 megawatts, that is a 200 megawatt total, what corresponds to 50 % of our electrical consumption.

Sites will be located in the West region, hereabouts of Al-bion, and the Southwest near Riambel. At the level of the investment, the expense of this operation is comparable in that of an aeolian plan. « 80 dollars will be needed to produce a megawatt ", follows our interlocutor.

Besides the production of electricity, CETO Wave Energy Technology will produce some drinking water desalinized thanks to a system of inverse osmosis. Facilities put under water will resist to cyclones and other bad weather. Pirogues and other pleasure boats will be able to sail easy above the submerged water wings. Tourism is not so affected. The fishers will also find their count there.

He does not stay more than in the Mauritian and Australian authorities to sign an agreement. "We wait that the Carnegie company installs a commercial unit in Australia first to have a proved reference and a guarantee of the solidity of plan. If everything takes place as planned, agreement will be signed before the end of the year ". A study of practicability will be undertaken in the second quarter 2009. The development of sites is envisaged before two years.

For the professor Soodursun Jugessur, this plan falls sheer in a context of flight of fancy of the prices of oil on the worldwide market and while the government aims to make a lasting island of Maurice. " We have a lot of chance because we have the sea, the sun, the wind We are sitting down on a gold mine ". In the country supporting to exploit these ignored means!


A bite of history
To pick up the energy of spaces to produce electricity does not date yesterday. In the sixties, the Englishman Bott, General Manager du Central Electricity Board, had already formulated such plan, which called, have never succeeded. In epoch, the expense of building was much more well brought up than the price of the oil products. In the seventies, researchers of the University of Maurice, which the professor Jugessur, followed this plan with other models of extraction of energy.

With the help of the Commonwealth Science Council, the researchers could, during one year, measure the height of spaces to gather useful data, but, there was not in succession. It is only newly only the plan of energy of spaces did again surface. Marcel Lindsay Noé, of "Mauritius Climate Change Action Forum", had wind of the system of Carnegie during a visit in Australia. A manager of this company was in Maurice to introduce his plan in Board of Investment and in CEB.