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Powered by a giant rubber snake

A giant rubber tube could harness the energy generated by sea waves.

Aptly named, the ‘Anaconda’ is a potentially cost effective and easy to maintain tool that could produce a source alternative power from the sea’s surface.

So called because of its long thin shape, the British development is anchored just below the sea surface and is closed at both ends as it fills completely with water. One end of the Anaconda will face oncoming waves.

A wave hitting the end squeezes it and causes a ‘bulge wave’ to form inside the tube. As the bulge wave runs through the tube, the initial sea wave that caused it runs along the outside of the tube at the same speed, squeezing the tube more and more and causing the bulge wave to get bigger and bigger. The bulge wave then turns a turbine fitted at the far end of the device and the power produced is fed to shore via a cable.

Still in its early stages of development, the rubber Anaconda when fully built will be 200 metres long and seven metres in diameter, and deployed in water depths of between 40 and 100 metres.

“The Anaconda could make a valuable contribution to environmental protection by encouraging the use of wave power,” said Professor John Chaplin, who is leading the project, funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC). “A one-third scale model of the Anaconda could be built next year for sea testing and we could see the first full-size device deployed off the UK coast in around five years’ time.”

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