The Seaspoon innovative wave energy converter

Energy provision is the biggest issue to face for the world's economy at any latitude. Nowadays the energy demand of developing Countries as well as that one of developed economies is huge and increasing at an unbearable pace. Considering the limited stocks of such an energy source, and the drawbacks related to the emissions associated to its utilization, the problem to find alternative energy sources and suitable conversion technologies must be solved in order to guarantee the growth and preserve the planet environment. Renewable energy sources are distributed and available all over the world in different forms and variable amounts. Among renewable energies sources, ocean waves power, around the coasts worldwide, has been estimated to be in the order of 1TW (1 TW/h 10
¹²
W). The conversion of this resource into sustainable electrical power represents a major opportunity to Nations endowed with such a kind of resource. At the present time most technological innovations aimed at exploiting such resources are at early stage of development, with only a handful of devices close to be at the commercial demonstration stage. None of them, though, operates converting the wave energy contents at its very origin: the orbital motion of water particles right below the ocean surface. The Seaspoon device catches the kinetic energy of ocean waves with promising conversion efficiency, according to specific “wave-motion climate”. University of Geoa aims to develop a prototype to be deployed in medium average energy content seas (i.e. Mediterranean or Eastern Asia seas) according to the interesting results of a first small scale proof-of-concept model tested in laboratory.