Scientists Use Waverider Buoys To Conduct Wave Energy Research
Mike Muglia hates to miss a wave.
A self-described surf junkie, Muglia catches waves on his surfboard off the coast of the Outer Banks in North Carolina. Further into those waters—15 nautical miles to be exact—sits another surfer. Aptly named Waverider, this surfer is a 440-pound, half banana-yellow, half beet-purple buoy that Muglia uses to study the energy that flows in our oceans.
This banana-yellow Waverider buoy will spend 12 months off North Carolina’s coast, collecting data on ocean waves, currents, tides, and water temperatures to help marine energy developers find the best spots to source clean, renewable energy from the ocean. Photos courtesy of Mike Muglia
Marine energy—clean power generated from ocean currents, waves, tides, and water temperature changes—is still young, but it has the potential to deliver clean, renewable electricity to coastal communities where nearly 40% of Americans live. Before that can happen, scientists need to pinpoint which oceanic arteries host the most reliable energy. With 3.4 million square nautical miles of U.S. waters—a larger area than the combined landmass of all 50 states—there is a lot left to explore.
Now, Muglia and Miguel Canals just deployed two new Waverider buoys—one off the coast of North Carolina and the other off Puerto Rico. There, the surfers will collect detailed data on the surface waves in those areas of the Atlantic Ocean, adding to publicly available data sets on waves, currents, and water temperatures that will not only move marine energy closer to widescale use but also help scientists understand how climate change is affecting our oceans.
Muglia is a principal investigator at the Southeast Atlantic Coastal Ocean Observing Regional Association and research professor at the Coastal Studies Institute of North Carolina, and Canals is a principal investigator at the Caribbean Coastal Ocean Observing System in Puerto Rico.
“We want to characterize the wave energy resources available,” said Canals, who, like Muglia, surfs the same waves he studies. “But we also want to collect long-term data on waves to understand the ocean and the changing climate for the benefit of future generations.”
The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), which owns the two Waverider buoys, partnered with ocean experts Muglia and Canals to collect this critical new data. This NREL-led effort is part of a larger, nine-year project funded by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Water Power Technologies Office. The collaborative, multi-institution study generates the resource data that technology and project developers need to design the next generation of devices. No one institution (or buoy) can collect it all, which is why partners like Muglia and Canals are so valuable. The data these partners generate are used to verify and improve model accuracy, and are also valuable on their own as detailed records of the real ocean. The data from this project—both the measurements and the models that use them—is publicly available on the Marine Energy Atlas.
“The ocean,” said Levi Kilcher, a physical oceanographer at NREL who leads the Waverider and Marine Energy Atlas projects, “is an extremely challenging environment. But we’re starting to see success, which makes it a very exciting time to be in this industry.”
On Aug. 2, 2021, Muglia set off in the Miss Caroline with a deckhand and marine mammal observer, who watched for sea turtles, dolphins, and other wildlife that might swim too close to the boat. For the 40-nautical-mile, three-hour trip, the bulbous Waverider buoy sat secure in a rubber tire on the back of the small skiff. When the Miss Caroline cruised to the selected spot—indistinguishable from the surrounding waters except by GPS—the team scanned the area for underwater obstacles before anchoring the Waverider under an almost-cloudless, blue sky.
From their lonely ocean homes, the two buoys will send live data back to Muglia’s and Canals’ teams using satellite communications systems. Solar panels help power those systems, and flashing lights alert boats to keep a safe distance.
Now, Muglia, Canals, and their colleagues and students wait impatiently for the first batch of data to stream in. Wave energy researchers and engineers are also waiting impatiently. Using high-quality data on how the ocean moves, they can design wave energy converters that are better tailored to extract energy from the motion of the ocean surface.
The data can serve climate and environmental scientists, too.
In the tropical Puerto Rican waters, violent winter storms and summer hurricanes can create energetic seas. Canals and his team chose their buoy site specifically for its high energy potential—those waves pack power—but the data can also help researchers understand how extreme wave events impact the coastal environment. So far, Canals has only lost one buoy in Puerto Rico—to Hurricane Maria. It was recovered two weeks later off the Turks and Caicos Islands.
Canals, who successfully deployed his Waverider on June 15, 2021, also chose his site because the seabed lacked a significant population of benthic organisms—seabed dwellers, like clams, oysters, sea stars, or sea cucumbers—or sensitive habitats. “There’s just sand and mud,” he said, “which makes it an ideal location for the anchor deployment.”
In Puerto Rico, the Waverider buoy can help climate scientists track how extreme waves—forged in violent winter storms and summer hurricanes—can impact the coastal environment. Photos courtesy of Miguel Canals
Neither Canals nor Muglia, who monitor multiple offshore buoys, have ever seen wildlife get tangled in buoy moorings. In fact, they have seen the opposite: The buoys attract shoals of slender, mud-colored Cobia and big-nosed, neon-yellow mahi-mahi, which like to swarm the bobbing devices.
And the Waveriders are not just for fish and scientists.
By streaming the buoys’ measurements to North Carolina’s Jennette’s Pier aquarium, which welcomes about 250,000 visitors a year, “the public can walk in and see what the wave heights are, see what the water temperature is, see what the ocean surface currents look like off the coast of North Carolina,” Muglia said.
You can find the same data from any computer anywhere in the world: With an online data feed available through the Coastal Data Information Program, surfers like Canals and Muglia can check for dangerous currents, frigid temperatures, or flat waves before heading out on their surfboards. It can also help law enforcement navigate volatile waters to catch up with offshore lawbreakers.
“Even though the main purpose is for resource characterization,” Canals said, “the buoy will have a lot of applications for surfers, fishermen, paddleboarders, divers, law enforcement, coastal managers, and boaters.”
Both buoys now float near the Gulf Stream, which swings through the Gulf of Mexico (near the Caribbean Coastal Ocean Observing System on Puerto Rico’s northern coast) and hooks around Florida before heading up the east coast to Canada. With its warm and nutrient-rich waters, the Gulf Stream is a major regulator of the world’s climate, feeds marine wildlife, and helps their populations thrive, so the U.S. fishing industry can thrive, too.
Still, Muglia said, “What happens down here is not well understood.” Those rich, energetic waters could help power coastal communities with clean energy. But, if their temperatures shift or their speedy currents slow, that could disrupt global weather and climate, potentially causing more violent storms in Europe or higher sea levels in major U.S. cities like Boston and New York.
The two Waverider buoys will help both marine energy developers and climate scientists better understand these mysterious waters.
For now, as he waits for the data, Muglia is guaranteed to never miss another wave—either on his surfboard or in his laboratory—with the Waverider surfing offshore.
Learn more about NREL’s water resource characterization research.
Article courtesy of NREL.
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It sounds like Tesla jumped the gun when announcing that Nissan drivers now have access to the Supercharger network in North America.
They will have to wait a bit.
Yesterday, we reported that Tesla added Nissan to the list of automakers with EVs capable of using the Supercharger network in North America.
However, Tesla has since removed Nissan from its list of automakers with access and switched the Japanese automaker back to the “coming soon” list.
Nissan confirmed to Electrek that access is not currently available, but it will be available by the end of the year.
It sounds like a miscommunication on Tesla’s side. We hear that it should be coming soon.
Elon Musk fired Tesla’s entire charging team – seemingly to make an example of its then-head of charging, Rebecca Tinucci, who reportedly disagreed with Musk about making further layoffs following another layoff wave.
Instead of just firing her, Musk decided to fire the entire team and then sent an email to other Tesla managers using the charging team situation as a warning.
Tesla has since had to rehire several former members of its charging team to rebuild the department.
This is believed to have slowed down the opening of the Supercharger network to other automakers in North America. We were told that communications with Tesla’s charging team were difficult to non-existent for those automakers for weeks earlier this year.
As we have previously reported, the situation has definitely slowed down Tesla’s own deployment of Supercharger stations.
Nonetheless, the Supercharger network recently hit the milestone of 60,000 chargers worldwide.
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Europe’s “green dream” Northvolt has filed for bankruptcy protection in the US after a rescue package failed to go through, leaving the battery maker with just one week’s worth of cash in the account. Cofounder and CEO Peter Carlsson, who spearheaded a costly expansion, has also quit.
The Swedish-owned battery maker filed for Chapter 11 in the Southern District of Texas, reports Bloomberg, with $5.8 billion debt. CEO Peter Carlsson, Telsa’s former chief products officer, stepped down from his role as CEO after the filing, but will remain onboard as advisor and director.
According to a statement, Northvolt said that its main factory will maintain business as usual during the reorganization, as the company now has a buffer from creditors, giving it time to restructure the balance sheet. However, the company said that this will not impact its business in Germany, and through the court process, Northvolt now has access to about $145 million in cash collateral. An additional $100 million in debtor-in-possession financing will be added to the pot via one of its customers, the report said.
In recent weeks, Northvolt has been in intense negotiations in the hope of securing a $300 million rescue package to give the company a bit more time to seek longer-term funding. But when that deal fell through, the battery maker was forced to seek protection from creditors via the Chapter 11 filing.
The company still has a $7 billion project in place in Quebec – a new campus that is set to include a cell production plant, battery recycling, and cathode active-material production facilities – and the bankruptcy won’t affect those plans, the company said on its website. “Northvolt Germany and Northvolt North America, subsidiaries of Northvolt AB with projects in Germany and Canada, are financed separately and will continue to operate as usual outside of the Chapter 11 process as key parts of Northvolt’s strategic positioning.”
The plant is expected to have capacity to produce 30 GWh of battery cell every year, with an expansion set to double that output, making it enough to power 1 million EVs. The Canadian government is putting $1.334 billion CND toward the project, with Quebec chipping in another $1.37 billion CND.
Northvolt has hit hard times in recent months, once thought of as Europe’s best shot to homegrown EVs and the makers of “the world’s greenest battery.” Enthusiasm mounted as the company opened the doors to its first plant in Sweden, in the small town of Skelleftea near the Arctic Circle, in 2021. Billions of dollars have been invested into the company, and Volvo, VW, and BMW rushed to place future orders.
All of this enthusiasm has been fueled by a vision to cut dependency on China by creating greener EV batteries using 100 percent recycled nickel, manganese, and cobalt. Plans were put in place to build factories in Gothenburg, in southern Sweden, and Poland, Germany, and Canada, all backed by huge government subsidies. Back in January, the company raised an additional $5 billion, firmly locking in its position as one of Europe’s best-funded startups and recipient of the largest-ever green loan in the EU.
But then things started going south, with Northvolt’s production problems and massive delays forcing BMW to cancel its €2 billion battery cell order with the company. This past May, Northvolt also announced that it pushing back its plans for an IPO until next year. The interim report that followed revealed the dire state of its finances and how far its production had fallen short of goals, with Carlsson admitting he had been “too aggressive” with the company’s expansion plan.
Since Northvolt has put in place a series of changes to reset the company’s course, including bringing onboard a new CFO, leaving the former CFO to focus solely on expansion plans. Plus the company started making cuts, including closing down its research center, Cuberg, in San Francisco and deprioritizing secondary businesses. At the end of September, Northvolt announced that it would cut 1,600 staff from three Swedish sites and about 20 percent of its international workforce.
Last month, Volvo started proceedings to take over their joint venture with Northvolt, while Volkswagen Group’s representative to Northvolt’s board stepped down this month. Sweden, for its part, is ruling out taking a stake to save its homegrown enterprise, Bloomberg reports. Carlsson had said last month that the company needs more than $900 million to permanently shore up its finances.
Photo credit: Northvolt
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Leading yard operation 3PL YMX Logistics has announced plans to deploy fully twenty (20) of Orange EV’s fully electric Class 8 terminal trucks at a number of distribution and manufacturing sites across North America.
As the shipping and logistics industries increasingly move to embrace electrification, yard operations have proven to be an almost ideal use case for EVs, enabling companies like Orange EV, which specialize in yard hostlers or terminal tractors, to drive real, impactful change. To that end, companies like YMX are partnering with Orange EV.
“This relationship between YMX and Orange EV is a significant step forward in transforming yard operations across North America,” said Matt Yearling, CEO of YMX Logistics. “Besides the initial benefits of reduction in emissions and carbon footprint, our customers are also seeing improvements in the overall operational efficiency and seeking to expand. Our team members have also been sharing positive feedback about their new equipment and highlighting the positive impact on their health and day-to-day activities.”
This Orange looks good in blue
One of the most interesting aspects of this story – beyond the Orange EV HUSK-e XP’s almost unbelievable 180,000 lb. GCWR spec. – is that this isn’t a story about California’s ports, which mandate EVs. Instead, YMX is truly deploying these trucks throughout the country, with at least four currently in Chicago (and more on the way).
“Our collaboration with YMX Logistics represents a powerful stride in delivering sustainable yard solutions at scale for enterprise customers,” explains Wayne Mathisen, CEO of Orange EV. “With rising demand for electric yard trucks, our joint efforts ensure that more companies can access the environmental, financial, and operational benefits of electrification … this is a win for the planet, the workforce, and the bottom line of these organizations.”
We interviewed Orange EV founder Kurt Neutgens on The Heavy Equipment Podcast a few months back, but if you’re not familiar with these purpose-built trucks, it’s worth a listen.
HEP-isode 26
SOURCE | IMAGES: YMX Logistics.
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