Underwater Energy Bags
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 6 ก.พ. 2025
- For many years Professor Seamus Garvey has been dreaming of "energy bags" anchored to the seabed, storing power by converting it into compressed air... And now it has become a reality in the seas off Orkney.
We've posted many video following this project - see a playlist of them at: • Seamus Garvey and Ener...
Test Tube by video journalist Brady Haran for the University of Nottingham.
More at www.test-tube.o... - วิทยาศาสตร์และเทคโนโลยี
Everyone loves an optimist.
A MUST SEE!!! I'm an Environmental Engineering In the USA, Florida, Estero, Florida Gulf Coast University. This is one of the most exciting real possible forms of collecting energy with little "side-effects."
I came up with something similar last year for a project I did with BP through EES. I worked on it for six months not knowing that it already exists. When I presented my idea to BP they were very impressed and they liked the idea a lot. I came up with another design because I had to give the first design to BP and when I was about to patent it I found out that it already exists. Neither BP nor my school teachers knew that it exists already.
Combining this with a tidal barrage power system actually could give you a magnification effect, since you could get energy while the tide is out (and water is flowing out of the barrage), fill the bag while the external pressure is low, and then as the tide rises around the bag the pressure would increase. If you tapped the bag when the water column above the bag was high, you would get much higher pressures out than you put in.
I remember watching the previous videos about his energy bags. Glad he's making progress on them. Hope everything goes his way.
Really beautiful concept!
And the cost of anchoring will decrease with deep water and pressure!
And a pertinent filling tube will bring low temp compression in deep water and high temp expansion for energy recovery!
Simplicité biblique! Bravo!
I was starting to worry that this project had been axed, glad to see that Seamus is still working on it.
Thumbs up for the slide rule reference. Plus, it's nice to see someone's dream become a reality.
Fantastic work and innovation, I particularly like the new prototype, so no excess cords will be tangling. Ingenious, thanks again!
It´s nice to see that this project is still going on.
It's so cool watching the development of someone's ideas over time, watching them come to life. Who knows, maybe in fifty years, wind storage will be a primary source of energy and this will be history.
Everyone must remember this is just a way to STORE energy.
Which is actually harder than generating the energy
Yeah, it's storage, but it wouldn't take more than a slight modification to make an energy GENERATOR out of the same concept with wave energy. Just attach the bag as a float to an arm on the bean running to a generator input to transfer the vertical movement of the bag to a rotational movement on the generator. You could even use the wave energy to POWER the normal bag storage as compensation for unusually high demand periods.
@@hellcat1988 Couldnt you just use the ocean's waves as a way to generate a pumping motion and a buoy to compress the air and send it down to the bags.
Look for the video titled "Seamus and his energy bags", this same channel. The bags are pressurized with "spare" energy from wind turbines, and then later (when energy demands are greater) the pressure can be released to recover the energy.
I love this, simple, yet the concept seems very sound. I have been thinking for a long time that wind turbines on land is a silly idea because we want to do stuff on land, and we have a lot of animals there, as well as the natural features on land can break up wind. Off shore you can have huge wind farms and nobody will be the wiser, and the storage of energy in high pressure bags underwater is genius. One of those moments where you slap your forehead asking why you didn't think of that.
XD
That would probably look awesome though, a massive compressed air spill. The codename "Kraken fart" for such an incident just popped into my head :P
Alhamdulillah brother hahahhahahhaha
This. I'm a huge fan of science but I kept watching this and thinking, "This is either an April Fools joke or it's an example of idiotic government subsidy of useless research."
You could consider using a concrete ‘caisson like’ box instead of the ballast bean.
Compressed air is potential energy when stored, and the wind turbine works by spinning and compressing the air into the bags I believe, and so when you have no wind and need energy it simply is released through a generator and you have electricity.
Former commercial diver's perspective on this... Steel is a dredful material in a marine environement but I'm sure you've taken that into account. By allowing the air/gravel mix to sink, the pressure differential will destroy the steel container as it drops from the surface to just a few metres down. I've seen several similar attempts to do this sort of thing and it's always a disaster. If I was doing it I'd have an upside down energy bag, sink it, then fill with grout from the surface.
SEAMUS IS BACK! BEST DAY EVER!
actually, DC is almost always used for off-shore wind turbines and for underwater transmission lines. The resistance of the overhear TL is not the issue, either with AC or DC, but it's reactance (that is the imaginary part of the impedance, related to inductance and capacitance effects).
It Should be in the description: "Seamus and his energy bags"
I guess it's like a balloon. Energy can be stored into it. But the thing here is that when you sink it into deep water, a relatively small balloon can store huge amounts of energy.
Use a pump to store energy, and a "windmill" to turn that pressure back into energy.
It's amazing how this hasn't been thought of before!
Usually, the xL (reactance) is 10 times higher than the r (resistance), in pu (per unit system). Also, the mutual impedances are significative, in AC transmission. For the power losses, only the resistance is responsible, but for the voltage drops, phase, etc, the other must be considered.
Other points are that for a 3-phase AC transmission you need 3 (or 4 with neutral) cables, while for the DC, only one. For dry land, the most cost-effective solution is the 3-phase.
I was JUST imagining this for compressed air energy storage
My understanding is that the (maybe only, but still big) major problem with compressed air storage is that when you compress the air, it heats up a lot, the heat energy is the dissipated to the environment (like the water, in this case). That lost energy is significant when efficiency is concerned.
really nice, we badly need energy storage. In central europe the situation is really bad, in Germany we now have about 20% renewable energy in our electricity grid, but now we really have pressing storage-related problems. Operators of conventional powerstations refuse or cannot shut down if there is too much wind, and too much electricity would damage the grid, so when there is optimal stormy weather, wind turbines need to be switched off.
Good luck with the experiments.. looking forward to see further developments!
This just made my day.
Well they're storing energy in an aquatic environment, maybe for use next to windmills in the sea? Curious what other applications there could be though.
The buoyancy of the air puts an enormous pressure on the bag. The air wants to go up, and the weight wants to go down, stretching the bag. Next time you get the chance, take a balloon and fill it up. Release it and notice how fast the air goes out. Now fill it again, force it underwater, and release it again. Notice how much more force is involved underwater.
You can attach a tube and a turbine to the energy bag and generate electricity.
If you fill it with air at low tide, and then release the air at high tide, you can tap into tidal forces.
These bags were built in Canada by Thin Red Line Aerospace using materials and techniques derived from research into inflatable airlocks for future spacecraft.
The basic idea is that electrical energy is used to pump large amounts of air into these underwater bags. Because of the water pressure, vast amounts of air can be stored in a small space and kept there for a long time. Then, when energy is needed, air pressure can be release to power turbines and be converted back to electrical energy. Thing of it as a cheap, giant, underwater battery.
Oh great stuff. Good to see more on this. We really need more solid, cheap ways of storing energy. Current methods are bulky, expensive and have huge losses at best.
I wonder if the manually installed method would be much cheaper though.
Or possibly combining an initial anchor to drop a plate down to the sea floor, then have some large screws nail it to the bed really tight.
But I guess all these calculations have already been done in to the costs and maintenance requirements with this.
Hi, I love the enthusiasm of the Professor. Just wondering why man-made storage vessels are necessary for the compressed air? Aren't there any much larger undersea caverns that can be exploited, such as the ones used for carbon capture and storage? Also, what about the subject of pipe losses, and getting the electricity onshore? Looking forward to more videos!
see previous dozen or so videos!!! link in the video description!
Not all electrical energy comes from lightning. This isn't a way to harness energy. But solar and wind power are are being produced practically 24/7 and the air bags offer an opportunity to store up to (ive heard) 100 MWh of electricity.
ok cool : ) I should have looked in the description. This video makes sense now, very cool idea! Thank you
Finding a way to store salty sea water at elevations would be an alternative? Water as a solid can be pumped at high pressures more efficiently than air and maintenance above sea level has to be easy in comparison. Mountains, canyons, bluffs and caves could be used with rainwater collection and melting tanks for ice and snow as "bonuses".
I'd like to know what magic you think is used to compress air and pump it underwater.
Its a nice idea. There a pistonenengines on compressed air. But a air tight steel frame holding concrete rocks + lifeline to the airballoon under seawater. The north sea is terrible corrosive. That steel structure will be changed every 5 years?
Or:. It could be that the steel container that's carrying 50 tonne of rock (for a net negative bouyancy of 25 tonne) is disrupted by the pressure differential and when it strikes the seafloor at 40 odd miles and hour, it bursts and deposits the gravel on the bottom. The sharp magled remains attached to energy bag head for the surface, arriving there at 40 mph after slicing the divers on the way up. The bag bursts when it hits the boat. The remains have another go at the divers on the way down.
Hello Brady, today i read about a car from a Indian Company named TATA that runs 200km with one filling of compressed air as the fuel. I was thinking that this might fit well into some of the work that Prof. Garvey does. Since the air pressure must not be converted into some other form of energy and can be used by the car directly. At least it might be a good precompressed-prestage if the car needs higher pressure levels.
Thank you a lot for all the great Videos
You put the ballast like concrete block or something. But when you want to move it you just inflate the main bag all the way ( when the main bag isn't inflate all the way it shouldn't be buoyant) or another bag that you keep deflated. It should be cheaper than steel ball!
How does the efficiency of these, in terms of capability, rate of storage/recovery, external energy input, and maintenance, compare to a trompe of similar scale? I'm faaar from deeply educated in the physics of gasseous compression, but they seem like similar storage states, where ocean depths maybe give these bags an advantage of approachability to greater extremes of compression at possibly the cost of expense in maintenance? Whatever, just an awesome thing to see approach application!
Ha! I remember when all the periodic videos and the like were shot with that grainy interlaced DV camera.
so we will be able to catch and store energy from lightnings? that would be brilliant but how much energy can be stored? enough to close some energy plants that polluting atmosphere?
So, I'm thinking off shore windmills that compress air instead of generating electricity and storing the air in these bags, then having compressed air turbines to turn the air into electricity on demand. Sound feasible?
Email sent. Link to this and I said my rambling comments were here. I said to him: "
Basically I've been involved in the of lowering heavy things (trash racks for a dam) with lift bags. It's a similar sort of idea to what you're doing with the ballast beans.
It's a friggin disaster. We very nearly lost two divers and a support vessel attempting this and we were only trying to get a few tonnes placed, not what will probably end up being near on 50 tonnes. "
I see some confusion here in the comments, they are just storing 'energy' as pressurized air instead of batteries..... so instead of using using a mechanical device which is moved by the waves to generate electrical energy, they are using mechanical device moved by waves to generate pressurized air, the pressurized air can then be used in the future to run an pressurized air operated motor. this is great ideas. one of biggest limiting factor of storing renewable energy is BATTERIES, this technique eliminates the batteries from the equation. which is brilliant. TATA motors has done this long time ago in some of their automobiles by installing two long cylinders tanks on the bottom of their automobiles to store pressurized air. the tanks can be pressurized by home electrical power or renewable energy.
I was talking about renewable, I just didn't mention it until the end. And Efficiency is always an afterthought beyond a certain %. In general I think people are to caught up in the Efficiency question. Anyways I was mostly trying to explain that the efficiency doesn't matter that much if your storing energy that you don't need. You ever see a windmill that isn't turning on a windy day and wonder why it isn't turning. Because it isn't needed. Also it saves on mechanical wear or it needs repairs.
I think the point is that it can be filled with air to make it float to the surface or flooded with water to make it sink
I guess this compressed air is eventually used to power some kind of generator, so what percentage of efficiency can be achieved by such? Interesting concept though.
I'm afraid I do have an air compressor. But don't worry about your gamble, as the fact we both have air compressors has nothing at all to do with the subject. I suggest you watch some of the related videos Brady linked in the info box.
The cost of sinking the bags seems to force deeper water installations. Deeper water means less efficiency per cycle. (More air pressure means more heat lost.) Ideally one would want large, low pressure systems.
Tidal conditions matter as well.
Thing is, we already have trains. Airbags are very simple in principle, but it's a new invention, and so the details need working out. It's simpler than your train idea because the train needs electricity, which must be produced somehow. Airbags store compressed air directly as it's produced, which maximises efficiency. The point is to store energy so it can be released when it's needed. The system will be wind- and/or wave-powered.
These guys have some really big balls... of air that is
Taking a wild guess, I'd say the offshore wind-driven air-compressing device which is featured in many of the videos linked to this one (apparently you haven't seen them) is what will compress the air. There is talk too of a wave-driven air compressor. But there is no talk of converting the compressed air into electricity to run an electric pump to fill the airbags. You already have compressed air. Why convert it twice? Do you know *anything* about energy efficiency?
He's spent a quarter of a million and hopes to get a million to get it out and really storing energy. One compensation claim where they could show negligence (which would be a cakewalk now, just link to this discussion) could *easily* be over a million pounds.
Why would you store the energy under water when you can just hook up and air compressor to a tank? Pump air in to store energy, let it out to generate energy. Wouldn't that be much more practical?
When i win the lottery, Seamus will be fully funded.
Nice think coupled with off shore windmiles.
If this works at 50 meters how much more efficient would it be at 100 or 150 meters? Or would the losses from the flexible hoses exceed the gains from the increased pressure?
The main problem for us today is storing energy. We can get abundant energy from many different sources such as solar energy and wind energy, but right now, when we burn a fossil fuel and produce energy, the excess energy not needed is wasted. The focus is making batteries with super capacity or storing energy in other ways such as this.
Undereater spolier tide passes over it and produces fiction energy or underwater photonic energy from the seasalt somehow or rudder energy.
Wow, such a simple and excellent idea that has been hiding from us.
It could capsize a boat. I doubt there's not too much buoyancy in a huge bubble of air surfacing. Probably takes quite massive energy bag to sink something like an aircraft carrier or an oil tanker though.
I think a good idea would be to have that and apply it with the tidal effect; first use the energy in the bags and then release the water in the giant pool for more energy... Just a thought. Also then the bags would be easier to get to the bottom of the sea again.
At 4:36 your chap mentions "calculators and slide rules".
I would dearly love to know if many of the scientists, engineers and mathematicians of today could still use a Slide Rule or is that knowledge becoming a bit arcane?
Get this on Kickstarter and I'll invest...
Why though? Does it rely on the pressure once its on the sea floor to compress the air? Wouldn't it have to do this hundreds of times automatically every day?
We really need a way to store solar and wind generated energy, but at first I was suspicious as I learned of it so close to April 1! Better than chemical batteries? As good and easier to scale up than pumping hydroelectric dam water uphill? Good stuff.
"In old money... an inch or more" (laughs!)
This sounds cool, but could you please explain what the advantages of this are over simply using a compressed gas cylinder on the surface? I'm imagining something to do with heat loss, but is that significantly different with this method and why?
Thanks :)
Also, what sort of closed-loop efficiency can you achieve in the charge-discharge cycle (electrical Watt-hours in versus electrical Watt-hours out)?
I thought of a very similar idea back in the 1970s, but was unable to balance the energy equation. Hope you have a bit more luck.
I think you need to take a look at the project proper before you judge, it's neither crazy nor useless. It's not a finished product yet, but nothing says it can't be what he wants it to be so far, it's just a matter of overcoming the engineering obstacles.
Also the project is bigger than what was in this one vid, please go watch the others.
I wonder if it is possible to inflate the bags at low tide and deflate them at high tide. Allowing the air in the bag during deflation to be at higher pressure than during inflation, resulting in an energy gain, thanks to the moon (as long as everything else is efficient). Im sure this would at least make the system more efficient. It's probably used but just not mentioned in the video, but if anyone knows for sure please say!
Sounds pretty rational to me.
The point is to store energy for when it's needed, not for when it's most efficient to deflate. If the two overlapped, I'm sure they wouldn't mind. But over the lifetime, my guess would be that the average pressure of the environment would be the average deflation pressure.
I'd suppose you can store energy longer term, but short term storages usually for flexibility, ie. charging and releasing whenever demand is low/high.
A bit late, but I e-mailed professor Garvey to ask about this, and he explained that it would likely be impractical to extract energy from this method since the pressure difference would be relatively small, even in regions with amplified tides (SE Alaska, Bay of Fundy).
What kind of camera was used to film this I’m curious, specifically the talking heads.
I'm a little confused as to what the goal is here. Also, I'm not sure why the anchoring "balloon" can't just be another bag tethered to a concrete block that can be inflated and deflated to the buoyancy needed to raise and sink the energy bag?
Got a reply. He's thought of all my issues long ago, just got lost in the translation to TH-cam. I won't go into what he's told me but it seems perfectly safe.
could you also harvest energy from the tidal changes in tension between the anchor and the airbag?
Good idea. I thought Brady monitored these a bit. Probably not. I'm sure I can find his email on the Uni website.
Seems like a very labor intensive product
I saw this post and thought my idea was coming to fruition through actual scientist but it's completely different from mine. Sigh. Of. Relief.
Thanks for the reply
what is the whole point, practical uses and reasons for all this?
From my half-reliable memory, it's very good - something like 90%. I think the exact figure is mentioned in one the the related videos.
How much energy wuld this be able to store? This idea seems a bit off to me.
Efficiency isn't as important at this stage as you might think. energy has to be used when it is made or it is wasted, Storing the energy by converting it is using the energy. And increases how much of the power your generating is going to be used. You take the energy you would otherwise have wasted and store it and then you can use the stored energy for grid balancing. Or to supply energy when your unable to generate energy in cases where your using wind and it isn't blowing.
I'm glad to see there is money to invest in mathematically improbable projects..omg. I cant begin to comment. I like his enthusiasm...but honestly.
What is the conversion efficiency in storage and retrieval?
Sief...that's awesome!
Here's an idea I came up with, that I'm giving away here.
Wind turbines create energy that is used to split H2O deep in the ocean, about 500 ft. from the bottom. The hydrogen and oxygen is placed into metal tanks on a looped cable, and the tanks with gas in them rise, turning a generator. The gas is burned at the surface in a 24 cylinder engine to produce electricity - the hot water vapor is condensed in the combustion cylinders to produce a vacuum, adding a power stroke, & improving efficiency.
run quickly to the department of energy and file for a grant.
I guess that for the much higher costs for underwater HV cables the best solution might be the DC transmission.
I konw it's confusing, but I hope to have helped somehow.
I have never seen DC recommended for long distance power transmission. Power transmission in modern times is almost always AC and that is because it steps up or down very easily. in addition to having lower losses in real operating environments. DC's problem I seem to recall ends up being resistance. the voltage drops and isn't easy to step up or down.
you use transformers with AC, voltage regulators with DC.
I've seen this and similar ideas that use collapsible bags. The struggle always seems to be to demonstrate that they are capable of withstanding the rigors of underwater life and thousands of cycles of inflation and deflation.
Why not just use an open-bottom diving bell, or some other rigid container with a vent in the bottom? No moving parts. So long as you don't completely fill it with air, the water itself acts as a seal. It lasts practically forever.
@@NickTymczasowy I'll agree that that could be challenging in the stormy seas off Orkney. I've been out in a small boat there before and it is certainly a rough environment. The tales of the attempts by Uboats to penetrate the RN anchorage at Scapa Flow in both world wars are quite harrowing. Even here, though, block ships sunk in important channels with massive daily tidal pulls coming from both directions have not moved appreciably in decades. An old barge, with sufficient steel or concrete ballast attached to the gunwales, capsized and sunk could certainly stay in place for years, if located properly. However, if we wanted to get a bit more sophisticated, we could certainly cast a steel or concrete cylinder that would float above a tether like these balloons. It would be cheap and easy to produce (you could even use all sorts of retired storage tanks) and would be far more durable than a puncturable balloon that is constantly expanding and contracting.
when you take away air from the steal balloon, don't you need to apply energy to do? where do you get energy out of it.
Good point for concern, but they will only supply like 1-5% of the total national demand for energy in peak. So if they become destroyed (and there will be hundreds of them, so not all that easy) it is not a catastrophy, just a minor nuiseance. Plus they are deep under water, so really you need a major state with stealthy submarines to attack these.