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The Buoys Light Up

Light up, light up.
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A savonius turbine lies beneath the waterline, rotating as said turbines are wont to do. An encapsulated permanent magnet rotor forms the hub of the turbine, rotating about an encapsulated mass of stator coils. Electricity is generated, and promptly conducted to an array of light bulbs (or similar) encapsulated inside this floating, translucent, algae-inhibiting beacon for night-time mariners.
Texticle, Dec 19 2007

Buoy Power http://www.sfgate.c...buoy&sn=001&sc=1000
Big Buoys generate 250kW each [csea, Dec 20 2007]

OSU Buoy Group http://cmrecords.net/osu/history.htm
[Hm...why couldn;'t they called it the OSU Buoy Band...?] Anyway, apparently the use of Savonius engines on buoys is long Baked, in this case to power scientific instruments. [DrCurry, Dec 20 2007]

boys light up http://en.wikipedia...i/The_Boys_Light_Up
Incedently, the girl on the cover of this album is my brother's ex. [simonj, Dec 20 2007]

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       Does my quick research show that this concept is in the ovens of invention all over the world, baking nicely as we speak? Why, yes, I believe it does. It may be time to get in early on the savonius buoy investment. This is why we love the B/2-ery...
globaltourniquet, Dec 19 2007
  

       Saw this in yesterday's paper [link]. Not quite the same, as they plan to generate lots of power to export, not just self-lighting.
csea, Dec 20 2007
  

       I doubt the Americans will get the lyrical reference. They pronounce buoy as "boo-ee", and have proabably never heard of Australian Crawl.
simonj, Dec 20 2007
  

       Depends on which American you are talking to (like a great many other words, they don't all pronounce "buoy" the same way).
DrCurry, Dec 20 2007
  

       Most self-lighting buoys don't need even that much power. Some run their anchor chain from a firm connection on the bottom through a gear, and out to a weight on the other end. The gear attaches to a generator, and movements with the tide and waves is enough to power the lights, and fog horns.   

       No doubt some are making good use of "Shake flashlight" technology magnets to be powered solely by the waves.   

       Yep, there are many ways to extract power from the ocean. Trouble is, most of them involve corroding parts, and transmission to populous areas can be tricky.
ye_river_xiv, Jun 15 2008
  

       Agreed. With this design, everything is encapsulated. The rotor is linked to the stator via magnetic field i.e. no rotating seals, no rotating contacts. Also the power is not transmitted to populous areas; it is used for illumination inside the buoy.
Texticle, Jun 16 2008
  
      
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