New Technology that Could Reduce Your Gas and Electricity Consumption

by: Olivia Wilson

Gas and electricity prices have remained steady for a while now but as surely as the seasons change, you can expect utility prices to fluctuate over the coming years. One of the inescapable facts is that gas and electricity supplies will not last indefinitely. The hunt for alternative technologies has been going on for decades but two exciting innovations could provide genuine renewable alternatives that could help reduce our dependency on fossil fuels.

The first innovation is called the Anaconda. Developed by a team of British scientists, Anaconda looks like a long, black rubber tube – because it is a long, black rubber tube! The sea snake is deceptively simple but harnesses the power of wave energy through a clever manipulation of the movement of waves.

The Anaconda lies in the water just below the surface of the water. The black rubber tubing is filled with water with a turbine at one end. As waves roll over the Anaconda, they create a bulge of water within the tubing which is then forced down the length of the tube towards the turbine. With constant wave fluctuations, the bulge gathers kinetic energy which then drives the turbine as the water bulge is pushed through the end of the tube.

The real benefit of the Anaconda is that there are no mechanical parts, so it requires very little maintenance and there are very few things that can go wrong with such a simple system. The rubber material used to make the device is also naturally resistant to erosion which makes it long lasting. Best of all, wave energy is constant and reliable unlike other sources of renewable energy such as wind and solar power, which means the Anaconda provides a realistic alternative to our consumption of gas and electricity.

The second innovation is a power storage system which provides a reliable substitute to back-up power systems. Energy needs to be stored in huge batteries for times of peak use. With conventional batteries though, the efficiency of such storage systems is very low and storing energy costs a lot of money and electricity to power air-conditioning systems which prevent batteries from over-heating.

The Pnu Power is a concept technology being developed which stores energy as compressed air. The system has proved extremely reliable and provides a clean alternative to valve-regulated lead acid batteries. As Pnu Power is not affected by changes in temperature it is much more energy efficient and will reduce dependency on gas and electricity to regulate cool temperatures of power storage systems.

Whilst both technologies are still being developed, they could be in use as early as 2014, diversifying energy consumption away from gas and electricity and into renewable sources.