Project Description
For Earth-humans-fauna-flora to survive, “dirty” electricity-generation from fossil-fuels and related Green-House-Gas (GHG) emissions must be reduced and eventually stopped by utilising sustainable Renewable-Energy-Sources (RES) instead. Cost-effective supply of RES-clean electricity to consumers (other than on small-regional-scale or individual level) depends on large-Grids to distribute it mixed with the “dirty” electricity, ON DEMAND. So far RES-electricity at industrial/array-scale level comes only from unpredictable Wind-Farms (including offshore-OWF) and Solar Photovoltaic-PV, making fossil-fuel electricity producers upset-angry to suffer the high-cost burden of continuously balancing Supply-Demand, and the mixed electricity cost high.
MARKET-COMPETITIVE clean-RES electricity is an absolute necessity for GHG-emissions targets to be met, and Wind-Farms (onshore+OWF) and Solar-PV alone cannot provide it. Ocean-Renewable-Energy-Sources (ORES) Wind-Waves-Undersea/Tidal Currents AND the SUN (PV-CSP-OTEC) can achieve this, if efficient ORES-Convertors are used at ARRAY-scales on suitable “floating bases”, and their combined electricity from each ORES Floating-Power-Station is transmitted to shore-Grid with ONE cable. Individual-different ORES solutions are not cost-effective, since power-transmission-investment exceeds by-far that of individual ORES-Convertors array, as with offshore Wind-Farms. Combining different ORES-Convertors outputs also manages the unpredictable RES-electricity from Wind-Waves-PV ALONE.
UNFLOP (Unsinkable-Stable-Unaffected-from-Waves-Floating-Truss-Platform) is THE suitable “floating base” as MARESINAP
European Commission funded programs FP7-MARINA Platform-2010 and FP7-OCEAN.2011-1: Multi-use offshore-platforms H2OCEAN-MERMAID-TROPOS aim to find such “floating base”, and since 10/06/2014 UNFLOP-MARESINAP is proposed by a MERMAID-partner and is being considered-evaluated by FP7-OCEAN.2011-1 engineers as their best option.
Establishing ORES-Resource is critical for MARESINAP-OWF deployment and securing Investments-Bankability. UNFLOP-WWRM (Wind/Wave-Resource-Mast) for DIRECT-measuring TRUE long-term Ocean-Site-Wind/Wave-Resource is important-much needed application-product.
UNFLOP is based on truss-structures that comprise pyramid/triangle and/or orthogonal basic truss-elements formed by individually buoyant, hydrodynamic shaped, hollow water-tight and/or solid truss-members with lower specific weight than water, meaning: MODULARITY-STANDARDISATION-SCALABILITY-DESIGN FLEXIBILITY-ANYTIME EXPANDABILITY….
UNFLOP is truly-unsinkable because most of its members cannot be flooded to lose buoyancy and, in-any-case, very-large number of truss-members must lose their buoyancy at-the-same-time for any sinking-risk, and it is truly-stable-unaffected from waves because they have small and fast buoyancy-thrust effects on truss-members, as millions of micro-forces are created by fluid molecules hitting-pushing on truss-member-surfaces, haphazardly, in millions of different directions, and there cannot be any large-enough-force to influence system-INERTIA.
