Techn.Englisch
Technisches Englisch
luk8/2010, 1 Seite
Power-Generating Buoys Shelter in the Deep They look a bit like underwater mines, but they have a far less sinister purpose - the first of these submarine wave-energy devices should sprout up off the UK coast in 2008. AWS Ocean Energy has developed an underwater buoy that harnesses wave energy from 50 metres below the surface. The British company says that because the entire device is underwater, it does not suffer from storms in the way that other wave-power devices do, and will not interfere with shipping. It will be anchoring its first five test buoys to the seabed in a test site off the Scottish coast next year. Wave power is nothing new. Perhaps the best known wave-power device is Pelamis - a red, floating, snake-like system that undulates on the surface of the sea, harnessing the energy of waves as they move up and down. But surface generators are very vulnerable to violent storms. AWS's device, which is made from the same materials that are used in the underwater sections of oil rigs, sits in the calm of deeper waters. It harnesses wave energy at a distance, through the changes in pressure that waves generate by increasing and decreasing the water column. The buoys are hollow and filled with a compressible gas that allows the top half of the buoy to move up and down. When a wave passes over them at the surface, the additional water stacked on top of the buoy increases the local water pressure, and the upper half of the device is pushed down. Between waves, the water column is shorter, the pressure lower, and the upper-half rises. This wavedriven pump action is converted into electricity, which can be fed into the national grid. "A town with 55,000 inhabitants would need half a square kilometre of seabed covered with 100 buoys to power it," says Grey. He adds that they could be effective in the North Atlantic, from Scotland down to Portugal, along the Pacific US shoreline, from San Francisco in the US up to Vancouver in Canada, along the coast of Chile, and even in South Africa and New Zealand. But calmer seas, such as the Mediterranean do not have enough wave height to pump the buoy. By courtesy of New Scientist allow erlauben, ermöglichen anchor ankern; Anker below unter, unterhalb von buoy Boje calm Ruhe, Stille calmer seas ruhigere Gewässer changes in pressure Druckunterschiede compressible komprimierbar convert umwandeln cover ab-, bedecken decrease absenken, verringern; Absinken develop (sich) entwickeln device Gerät, Vorrichtung enough genug, genügend entire gesamt, ganz feed, fed, fed füttern, hier: einspeisen float treiben, schwimmen generate erzeugen grid Stromnetz harness nutzbar machen height Höhe hollow hohl increase ansteigen, erhöhen inhabitants Einwohner interfere with stören, beeinträchtigen Mediterranean Mittelmeer off vor oil rig Ölbohrinsel purpose Zweck push down nach unten drücken rise steigen, erhöhen shelter beherbergen, Schutz suchen shipping Schifffahrt shoreline Küste(nlinie) sinister düster, dunkel snake-like schlangenähnlich sprout up keimen, sprießen square kilometre Quadratkilometer stack aufstapeln, auftürmen suffer from leiden an, beeinträchtigen durch surface Oberfläche test site Versuchsgelände undulate wogen, wallen violent gewaltsam, stark vulnerable empfindlich, anfällig water column Wassersäule wave-driven Wasser (an)getrieben wave-power Wellenenergie P. Zillmer Elektrotechniker sollten englischsprachige Dokumentationen und Pläne lesen können. In Kooperation mit www. engineering-report.de erleichtert diese Seite den Zugang zur englischen Sprache und vermittelt elektrotechnische Fachausdrücke. Fremdsprache Technisches Englisch F a c h w i s s e n L e r n f e l d e r 6 - 1 3 LERNEN KÖNNEN 8/10 Power-Generating Buoys
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- P. Zillmer
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