![]() When the vessel’s buoyancy changes due to the new balance of oil, it drops back into the ocean and the wax contracts and solidifies - starting the process over again. As the vessel rises from the middle depths of the ocean, it reaches warmer waters at the top.Ī temperature-sensitive wax stored in cylinders throughout the vessel melts and expands when it comes into contact with this thermal energy, and pushes the oil back through the turbine so it can recharge the battery. The charge cycle begins when the battery turns on a motor that pulses oil into a bag at the bottom of the cylinder - which then changes the buoyancy of the vehicle and allows it to rise or fall. The new vehicle draws on the energy generated from the natural temperature differences found at different oceanic depths - from the warm waters of the surface to the cold waters closer to the bottom - to recharge its built-in battery. The buoys are part of the Argo project, which aims to track seasonal changes in ocean temperature, salinity and velocity. He said his team hopes to eventually deploy the vessel to replace many of the some 3,000 similar buoys currently scattered across the ocean. The ability to collect data faster, Davis said, could aid in monitoring worldwide climate change. The new design can dive at a more frequent basis than the old one - during its three-month trial, the new vessel made over 300 dives, whereas the old model was capable of making only 12 dives in that amount of time. to engineer an eight-foot-tall, 180-pound cylinder that runs on natural and renewable energy from the ocean. The Scripps team worked with the Jet Propulsion Lab - an organization based in Pasadena, Calif. “We can take energy out of the environment without harming it in an underwater vehicle,” Scripps oceanographer Russ Davis said. Researchers at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography have created an underwater vehicle powered by thermal energy, which they say could run indefinitely.
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