1. Hydrokinetics: the Green Hydropower Solution
For Canada to find real, sustainable growth, its governments and businesses need to figure out
how to leverage growth opportunities overseas in emerging markets, especially in green
technology. Barack Obama said, the nation that leads the clean energy economy will be the
nation that leads the global economy.
The installation of most of very low head sites is technically feasible, but civil works give rise to
high costs, resulting to economically enviable projects. To solve this problem, one must design a
new machine using a completely different philosophy to equip such sites.
The study of current turbines reveals that they were all invented on the basis of a poor
understanding of hydrodynamics, and a consequent false premise.
The new damless development of a submerged helical pathway is capable of extracting high
energy from low head sites at low cost because of a physics phenomenon, called repulsion
energy, which speeds up the current at the extremity of the curves. This is an exciting
breakthrough in green energy; it is modular, relatively easy to install and highly scalable.
Most inventions are not usually new: this new HUG (Helical Unique Generation).
invention is a combination of two inventions: the Gorlov helical turbine (1992), which is the child
of the Darrieus turbine (1926), and vortex technology, developed by Schauberger (1929). A
vortex pathway into which oval twin helical turbines are placed creates a marriage of two
inventions: the Helical Pathway System, HUG (Patent Pending).
The secret is in the natural motion of the water, which is a vortex. Water reduces resistance by
curving more and more inwards thereby avoiding the confrontational resistance of straight
motion. Nature has no use for the straight line: think of the water that leaves your bathtub; give it
a twirl and see it speed up.
HUG taps into a vast new source of clean and renewable energy, that of water currents as slow
as 2 to 4 knots previously off limits to conventional turbine technology that target rivers with water
currents greater than 4 knots. The vast majority of river/ocean currents in the Canada and United
States are slower than 3 knots. This transformational technology is applicable in rivers, man-
made channels, tidal waters, or ocean currents. The Gulf Stream (near Miami) and the Kuroshio
are the only two currents, which have velocities above 3 knots and flow throughout the year.
There are over 100 patents designed to capture energy from the ocean currents, but none have
proved economically viable. Presently, a large propeller is being tested in the Bay of Fundy,
which has the highest tides in the world. Most of the funding comes from governmental sources.
Why has it taken so many years to develop? The reason is that the fast moving tides sense that
there is an obstruction in its path, namely a propeller, and the flow is easily diverted by this
positive pressure. Conversely, a HUG system experiences a negative pressure. The flow is
actually attracted into the HUG because the velocity of the flow increase by as much as four
times as it swirls into a natural pathway.
2. The Search for Alternative Sources of Energy
All the signs indicate a tripling of oil prices, caused by a 70% increase in international demand.
China and India alone can cause this major increase in transportation costs, while oil supplies
continue to drop at 3% per year. All the economic forces point to a serious recession, as
countries try to adapt. Inflationary forces will increase as the western world try to adapt to more
expensive imports of food and household costs.
Coal is cheap now, because it has no carbon emission costs. Oil production alone will have a
high emission cost tax, where one barrel of oil must be burned to produce 1.4 barrels. (The
optimum is one barrel burned to a production of 5 barrels, unlike the past oil production, which
was as high as 14 barrels)
This will all cause huge changes and shocks! Technology seems to be fixed. Germany and
Denmark have no oil reserves, so they have already concentrated on wind power, which is very
inefficient. The financing for the necessary changes will come from carbon tariffs on all foreign
companies in order to level the playing field.
We really have no choice but to seek out renewable sources of energy: where will all the
electricity come from that will be used to charge the alternate car batteries? The solution will
come from a myriad of new sources, the most important of which will continue to be hydro power.
Yet most of the river locations have already been dammed.
Canada is great, but needs great projects
In the past, opportunities to develop other such national prestige products have been
squandered. Prestige projects do cost, but if conceived and used intelligently, they pay off.
One must develop a well thought-out, free market agenda, based on environmentalism.
In 2009, there were strong Canadian Research and Development gains in the engineering
services sector (17.4%) and electric power and utilities sector (21.1%). Ontario Power
Generation posted a $112 million R & D Expenditure, which was a 211%gain since 1999, while
Hydro Quebec spent $100 million for the same goals. SCN-Lavalin Group Inc. showed a $29
million investment in the same time period.
There are other opportunities for research financing: native communities have many damless
hydroelectric potential sites within a short distance to their communities. Under the $250 million
Aboriginal Loan Guarantee Program, aboriginal communities will be eligible for loan guarantees
for assistance of up to 100% of total eligible costs.
Canada has tremendous potential for small hydro development with more than 5500 identified
sites (11,000 MW), especially in a free flow environment. It was estimated that as much as 3,400
MW of electricity generation potential could be exploited in U.S. rivers by small, unconventional
systems such as free-flow turbines.( Hall et al. 2004)
Enter a new hydroelectric product, which requires no dam. This product can be used in a myriad
3. of free flow sources: rivers, rapids, waterfalls, tides and ocean currents. This means more local
power will become available. Romain (Rome) Audet is the inventor and holder of a Canadian and
US patent pending for such a Helical Pathway System, called HUG.
This Hydrocoil patent has some similar features.
Gorlov helical turbines emit positive pressure.
There will be no need for a dam, because the power comes from the kinetic (moving) energy of
the current. So how can this new good be easily described in a few words?
Picture a long spiralling interwoven set of 3 m diameter tubes facing a current from rapids, a
waterfall, a tide or an ocean current. Now place an array of twin helical turbines in the HUG
Pathway separated within a journey length of a 6 m of each other in the fast spiralling flow.
The Power in the ocean-going HUG System is 20 MW/100 m lengths at 1/100 of cost of dams.
One Helical Turbine is located at every 4 m straight length of a triple HUG System
25 Turbines in 100 m length x .79 MW/Turbine = 19.8 MW/100 m length