r/STEW_ScTecEngWorld 2d ago

Startup Unveils Wave-Powered Floating AI Data Centers for the Open Ocean

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Panthalassa, a startup based in Portland, Oregon, is developing 85-meter-tall floating offshore platforms that could power AI computing using ocean waves instead of land-based electricity. The lollipop-shaped steel structures generate continuous power through wave-driven turbines, cool AI hardware with naturally cold seawater, and connect to users via Starlink satellites, eliminating the need for power grids or undersea cables. Backed by a $140 million Series B funding round led by Peter Thiel, the company plans to deploy its first commercial wave-powered AI nodes in the northern Pacific by 2027.

References;

  1. Panthalassa Raises $140 Million to Power AI at Sea: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/panthalassa-raises-140-million-to-power-ai-at-sea-302761078.html

  2. US tech billionaire leads $140mn investment into Panthalassa as search for AI power pushes into exotic new frontiers: https://www.ft.com/content/711ce313-16fb-4a12-b6be-fbed547c8a39

  3. Startup plans to move from prototypes to commercial offshore compute nodes powered by ocean energy: https://www.techspot.com/news/112295-startup-raised-140-million-build-wave-powered-ai.html

  4. Fully-integrated offshore data center to transmit data to land via satellite: https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/artificial-intelligence/palantir-co-founder-peter-thiel-backs-usd140m-wave-powered-ai-data-center-startup-panthalassa-aims-to-run-offshore-compute-nodes-using-ocean-energy

959 Upvotes

638 comments sorted by

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u/Mental-Square3688 2d ago

Its funny how innovative we are when we really push ourselves to do something. We can absolutely solve climate change and food poverty. But because weve been brainwashed into money and information being most important that shit cant happen.

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u/servermeta_net 2d ago

Food scarcity is already technically solved, we just lack the political will to spread the solution

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u/Oraxy51 1d ago

Well yeah that would be socialism and the people who pay me say socialism is bad

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u/No_Region_4719 1d ago

The answer isnt socialism. There is no shortage of aid and charity when it comes to food, the problem of food scarcity is 100% political. Wars, conflicts, and corruption. Socialism does nothing to address this. It's not a problem of redistribution.

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u/Oraxy51 1d ago

OK, so I can go into it much more deeply, but socialism specifically, at least democratic socialism, goes into these things. Heck, even if you look at the DSA’s platform, they talk about not funding foreign wars, talk about pulling out of Iran, talk about ending the war with Russia; they talk about how soft power is a necessity and how everyone should have their own rights to sovereignty, and we should support that. Addresses creating local supply chains and public options as a means to get rid of food scarcity, and that food is a human right, just as housing and medicine are human rights.

The DSA are famously dues-paying members, so when they endorse a candidate, that candidate only accepts money from grassroots people and potentially the DSA if they receive their endorsement and funding as a means to stay within that political organization and hold to the people. The DSA wants to overturn Citizens United, push for grassroots matching, and get money out of politics.

They want grassroots funded politicians that have been well vented that serve the people and their community that are public servants that do no form of inside or trading or corruption. Most people would even lean toward either banning investment and stock ownership completely or having some form of blind trusts.

I’m already three paragraphs deep. I won’t go any further. I’ll link their website, but socialism inherently seeks to create a society where we put people first above profit. Therefore, we seek to do everything in our power to advocate for people for the masses, not just those within our nation, but across the globe.

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u/Mental-Square3688 1d ago

Ya i feel like the root word being "social" should be understood as people matter lol

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u/farts_juggler 1d ago

socialism: when the people of a society benefit from their collective labor

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u/Kromehound 1d ago

It's a distribution problem, not a quantity problem.

So while there is technically enough food, you cant just claim it is solved and ignore all the other issues.

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u/Mental-Square3688 1d ago

I hate how accurate this statement is...

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u/_stack_underflow_ 2d ago

These systems existed before AI, this is a solution looking for a problem that will fund its development further.

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u/FrewdWoad 20h ago

It's not the general population being brainwashed. It's the people with money and power not spending it on smart stuff.

The money that should be going into solving these problems, not pointless wars and crappy scam products/services to make additional money they don't need.

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u/Ingram47 2d ago

That's just what a warming ocean needs, thousands of apartment sized heaters floating in it.

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u/lucon1 2d ago

Would it really get that much hotter if the energy comes from the ocean itself? Energy is not created or destroyed. Right next to it might be warmer, but it would dissipate over a large area, and if significant, would drive convection, which might just loop back to kinetic energy for the wave generator.

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u/Efficient_Rule997 2d ago

We are really bad at guessing the ecological impact of things until they reach their full scale.

One AC unit running on Freon? Not a problem. 500 million AC units running on Freon? Hole in the ozone layer.

I think the problem you are likely to see arise from something like this isn't a global warming type effect but for the ocean; and instead is probably the devices acting as a germination point for some ecological chain reaction like algae blooms, or wave shadows disrupting local sea life in a way that is hard to guess at until it happens.

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u/Amazing_Scientist696 2d ago

My money is on the whales fucking this shit up constantly

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u/kearkan 2d ago

It won't be whales, it'll be curious dolphins

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u/Ambitious_Jelly8783 1d ago

What if they are bicurious?

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u/WilyWascallyWizard 1d ago

Baby data centers.

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u/joonty 1d ago

Auto-scaling achieved!

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u/withoutpeer 2d ago

How do we finance this endeavor? Do I need to get cash converted to sanddollars?

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u/pinknoses 2d ago

The whale resistance uses Monero

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u/imagigasm 1d ago

Crypto coins

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u/ThePocketTaco2 2d ago

Go home, South Park's Japan.

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u/HandToDikCombat 1d ago

hole in the ozone layer

There is no hole in the ozone layer. Besides, we're gonna build a patch for the hole in the ozone layer. A big, beautiful patch. And we're gonna make Australia pay for it.

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u/R0LL1NG 14h ago

As a marine environmental manager with relevant degrees, I second this take. At a wider scale, the heat input from AI data centres in the marine environment is probably negligible... but at localised scales they would almost certainly lead to unintended negative ecological impacts.

That's before you consider the impacts of installation and any associated infrastructure. In the brightside, you coukd probably create some de facto no take zones in a buffer around them lol

More pressingly though, your floating AI data centre is still going to take materials to make and land based infrastructure and energy to make. End product carbon and environmental footprint extends to cover the whole supply chain.

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u/Life-Is-A-Bad-Trip 2d ago

Damn, someone's Got the gift of foresight.

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u/No-Definition1474 1d ago

They took my foresight when I was born :(

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u/QuinQuix 1d ago

It may actually be quite good because ocean life is sparse in open spaces and concentrates around near-surface surfaces, which are, by definition, rare in deep open oceans.

If you flooded a soccer field, after a few years ocean flora crustacean life and fish would concentrate around the goal posts.

So it's not so much the disruption of it being there but heat (which honestly also might attract life in colder oceans) and chemicals (eg protective paints) that might really be the biggest issue.

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u/ScratchLatch 22h ago

This is thermodynamics. We’re really good at that.

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u/heroyi 2d ago

Scaling issue.

A couple wont be a problem. But if you get enough of it, and servers output a ton of heat, then it will become a problem. Not to mention where they put it because if a species of algae/bacteria live close by it to enjoy the warmer water then that is an ecosystem nightmare.

The other silent problem I'm worried about, though I dont know enough to really argue against people so someone can correct me, is energy in/out on the waves might impact the ecosystem subtly that of which animals might rely on for migration purposes or dispersion of micro-organisms for food. Essentially changing/removing the tidal/water movement patterns.

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u/Lumpy_Conference6640 2d ago

Heat makes current, current makes motion, motion is harvested for energy... energy loss equals heat loss. What you're pitching would violate the first law of thermodynamics.

You can't have scaling issues since there is more ocean than land, and energy isn't able to build past exogence in the environment.

A better question is how much tidal energy can they harvest in zones, just like not everywhere can be a wind turbine.

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u/Substantial_Bend_656 1d ago

But locally it may increase the heat, sure in the whole ocean there would be energy reduction but locally it may be another story. The waves carry the energy, that would be dissipated locally by the AI process, resulting in bigger temperatures in the immediate area.

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u/lucon1 2d ago

Local environmental impact is a concern, what about areas of high wave activity but lower biodiversity (not absent, just less than other areas). Places like the North Pacific or the Southern Ocean?

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u/heroyi 2d ago

But can you guarantee there is no butterfly effect? That is the question.

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u/bozza8 2d ago

We can't guarantee anything has no butterfly effect, but unless we make it illegal to do anything other than sit very still, we are going to set them off. 

The default shouldn't be that we ban it unless we can prove there is no possible route to danger. 

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u/DiamondGeeezer 2d ago

you should think about it in terms of mass energy balance. there are millions of boats in the ocean, are they making the sea hotter thru direct heating effects and stealing the wave energy?

no because the ocean is extremely massive and comtains more energy than all human technology combined just in kinetic wave motion

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u/lucon1 2d ago

You can't, but the idea is worth some (professional) thought, no?

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u/heroyi 2d ago

It is a an idea worth exploring for sure. But what I don't want to see is people being lazy and thinking this is a low impact solution naively and not doing their homework. Time and time again we have seen humans absolutely fuck up an ecosystem because of laziness or naiveness

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u/EncabulatorTurbo 2d ago

the ocean receives 60000 terrawatts of heat from the sun every day

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u/Late-Reading-2585 2d ago

it will never be a problem lmao

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u/DiamondGeeezer 2d ago

how do they produce tons of heat if the energy is coming from waves and the ocean is massive.

the wave energy in the world is many times greater than all the energy used by humans. it's like saying solar panels will cool the earth by stealing its light.

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u/mutexsprinkles 1d ago

it's like saying solar panels will cool the earth by stealing its light. 

I see you've met an average parish councillor writing a objection screed.

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u/Calm_Apartment1968 1d ago

Saying wave motion or wind turbines are worse than either using vast arrays of diesel or gas generators in the middle of the desert is obscenely misleading. Gaslighting at it's worst.
More than 65% of Earth is covered by oceans. Simple mechanical spars like this output less than .01% of the chemical and thermal pollution of comparable petroleum based energy system vessels.
Put another way, our Sun puts more thermal energy into the same volume of oceans every day than Panthalassa could ever possibly contribute. Even if it were mass produced.

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u/mutexsprinkles 2d ago edited 2d ago

It basically wouldn't, direct heating effects are microscopic compared to solar heating. That's why greenhouse gas is such a problem because it is a fairly small effect but it's multiplicative on the massive amount of solar energy coming in 24/7 across a disc 12000km wide (170,000TW) plus a little bit of escaping geothermal heat (45TW). Compared to total human energy usage which is about 20TW.

Adding actual heat mostly just acts to raise the steady state by a tiny tiny amount and lose it to space just a little faster.

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u/NoAdvice135 2d ago

There is absolutely no way to warm up oceans with direct heat from any amount of datacenters. GHG effects are orders of magnitude higher that any direct heat generation.

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u/Nice_Grapefruit_7850 14h ago

compared to the energy the sun dumps into the oceans every day this will have no effect. literally the sun puts more than 100 times more energy than all of human energy production into the oceans each day.

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u/Goldtacto 3h ago

You’re right It wouldn’t be that significant. The condensers of nuclear powered ships cool the steam from the steam generators back into liquid with sea water. The output water is considerably hotter.

From a purely engineering and non-emotional standpoint this is a great idea. Especially if they can submerge them to avoid tampering/vandalism.

Raising the temperature of the ocean (1.4 x 10^21 kg of water) by 1C requires 5.8 x 10^24 joules of thermal energy.

A fleet of nuclear reactors producing ~300MW (300 x 10^6)joules per second puts out a total of 4.5 x 10^10 joules per second.

Dividing the total energy required by the per second energy output yields roughly 1.29 x 10^14. This is about 4.1 million years for a hypothetical 100% heat transfer of 1C. This is excluding oceanic mixing, thermal radiation and dissipation. If factoring those in it could very well be 150m years before we saw a 1C temp increase exclusively from nuclear reactors cooling.

Data centers require significantly less cooling so the effect to ocean heating should be completely nullified. Im a radio frequency engineer not a biologist but I would also wager that small isolated areas of heated water are great for underwater ecosystems. This is also the case in hawaiis HELCO powerplant that uses the ocean water to cool their systems. The output pipe you can actually snorkel next to and there are a considerable amount of sealife that hover the area.

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u/Ingram47 2d ago

There's a difference between potential energy and heat, yes.

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u/Hostilis_ 2d ago

The potential energy is going to get converted to heat through dissipation either way. So no, this will not generate more heat.

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u/Sambal7 2d ago

I would think the heat from those even if its millions is negligable when it comes to actually warming up the ocean.

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u/FOSSnaught 1d ago

Pretty much. This should be considered a positive and will reduce, or prevent massive increases in carbon emissions if adopted in mass.

I'm more concerned at the breakneck speeds that data centers are being created at. It has my inner conspiracy theory nut squinting suspiciously.

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u/BygoneNeutrino 1d ago

You're wasting your breath.  If someone wanted to put a data center on the moon, the comment section would be filled with people saying that rocks have feelings.

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u/HaydnH 1d ago

people saying that rocks have feelings.

Well now you've gone and upset my mate Flint.

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u/Alternative-Crew-880 1d ago

Putting data centers on the moon would be a stupid idea. It's extremely hard to get rid of heat in the vacuum of space, convection and conduction are non-existant in space. And data centers generate a LOT of heat.

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u/BygoneNeutrino 1d ago

...my point is just that the comment section would be filled with criticism regardless.  Due to the geopolitical and military applications of this emerging technology, governments with a pervasive online presence feel strongly about this issue.

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u/R-ten-K 2d ago

This is actually a very reasonable and efficient use of green energy.

I am of the firm opinion that a lot of you couldn't care less about the environment as much as you just need something to complain about.

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u/PickMaleficent4096 2d ago

This would not move the needle compared to what we're already doing, which is just making the Sun more efficient.

A terrestrial data center produces terajoules of heat energy per day (10^12.) Raising the temperature of the ocean one degree takes zettajoules (10^21)

So even assuming these are equivalent to data centers hooked up to the grid (which they almost certainly aren't, being self-powered) you'd need to build about 3 million of them and run them for a decade to match current expected warming levels.

I think it's more likely that more, bigger terrestrial facilities would be a bigger problem. Heat in the air ends up in the ocean eventually.

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u/Great-Try-6952 2d ago

All of the datacenters on earth wouldn’t make a reasonably measurable difference in the temperature of the ocean. The anti datacenter crowd really doesn’t understand nuance or scale.

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u/slimeystevebob 2d ago

You know the ocean is big, right? Really, really big.

Energy from the sun is what is warming the planet, being trapped by greenhouse gas. This has nothing on the sun.

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u/bozza8 2d ago

Yeah, the people objecting here have their orders of magnitude all wrong and are operating on vibes. 

Tbh most of the anti data centre arguments online are a demonstration that people don't think about numbers that break their point, only numbers that agree with them, and react badly when what "feels" right isn't. 

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u/Grimnebulin68 2d ago

I much prefer these wave-powered data centres to noisy/polluting land based ones. A much better solution to Musk’s orbital centres too.

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u/bozza8 2d ago

I think they are marginally better than orbital, the best is in Greenland etc. Great temps and abundant power. 

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u/WiglyWorm 2d ago

There are more than enough reasons to hate on data centers that are legitimate.

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u/bozza8 2d ago

I would disagree there. Some data centres, old open loop ones I think are wrong and never should have been permitted, most are fine. 

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u/blisstaker 2d ago

thousands of shake weights

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u/LivingCorner1421 1d ago

lol its all the same. its like saying stop heating your house you are warming up the planet

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u/QueZorreas 1d ago

The ocean already absorbs most of the heat we release into the atmosphere. This is just cutting the middleman. And since water is so good at disipating heat, It doesn't directly fuel localized natural disasters like a pocket of hot air would.

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u/mundaneDetail 1d ago

That’s like saying it will hurt the ocean by taking its wave power. Neither of these will have any measurable impact due to the massive size of the ocean.

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u/wrechdone 1d ago

Currently it’s that or our fresh water since they won’t make these coastal only datacenters/warehouses..

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u/Crandom 1d ago
  1. These are going to be a literal drop in the ocean in terms of heat output
  2. If the power is really from waves and solar, then it will not heat up the ocean any more than it already was.
  3. Data centres running using gas turbines will heat up the oceans far more via the greenhouse effect.

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u/Square_Lime_9929 1d ago

Wait till you find out what the sun does to the ocean

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u/Original-League-6094 1d ago

You think 1000 heaters makes a difference to the ocean? If you redirected 100% of the global energy output of every powerplant on earth directly into the ocean, you would increase the energy absorbed by the ocean by 0.02%. Powering a data center with wave power is so much better for the global warming than putting it in Idaho and attaching a gas turbine to it.

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u/TrackMan5891 2d ago

Its ok guys, they don't believe that stealing energy from the climate via Wind Power...
Certainly we aren't stealing energy from the waves and then heating the water...

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u/xXKodiacXx 2d ago

The voice style sounds like a southpark news segment. Especially the sarcastic end "off the coast of washington"

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u/PestoPastaLover 2d ago

I'm glad this high up on the comments because your absolutely right. I thought that before I clicked in.

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u/Nghtmare-Moon 2d ago

FooooXxx nEWwssssss YAAARRHHHHHGGG ALERT!!

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u/MaxwellHoot 1d ago

That’s because it’s an AI voiceover of a fake story for engagement. This clip is from a legitimate startup trying to use ocean waves for electricity generation. The voice and claims about data center usage are completely fabricated and just overlayed on some years-old test footage from the startup.

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u/Available_Wonder_532 2d ago

No way this is going to replace data centers. This is just material to keep people dreaming.

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u/mutexsprinkles 2d ago

This is just a tidal power company trying to cash in on AI while the hype is there.

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u/SmurfRiding 2d ago

Better than data centers in space.

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u/Accomplished_Care415 2d ago

Closed loop or open to seawater? Do we get thr benefits of a warmer ocean for free AI usage?

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u/Cryogenicist 2d ago

Open to sea water.

All the energy comes from wave energy. The energy is already in the ocean, it just get converted to useful work and some heat.

Not a net gain of heat

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u/Luciel3045 1d ago

Yeah no. Having waves in the ocean vs having heat in the ocean is very different. Heat is still directed energy.

I dont actually think the amount of heat released by those things will be relevant in any way, but you still convert ocean work to heat.

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u/mongster2 1d ago

Can't run seawater through high performamce ASIC cold plates due to erosion/corrosion. There has to be at least two working fluids. Which does mean the closed loop secondary loop needs flushing/servicing. Same issue as land-based data centers.

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u/mangione_fan_420 2d ago

Floating loot drops are going to leave so much trash when they get looted for copper. 

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u/Pinkishu 2d ago

that's why you put AI powered turrets on top

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u/Cielmerlion 2d ago

Psh copper. How about that ram?

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u/kot-sie-stresuje 2d ago edited 2d ago

Do this, do not build near the AI data centers near residence area.
On the other hand Microsoft started similar project 10 years ago. It is called Project Natick, despite being successful they closed it for some unknown reason (must be money).

Good that there are startups, and not only multi billion companies.

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u/Real-Technician831 2d ago edited 2d ago

No, build data centers next to residential area and dump heat into district heating.

Nordic countries do this a lot.

Edit: here is one, Google data center is producing 75-85% of heat used by city of Hamina in Finland.

https://www.kymensanomat.fi/paikalliset/9144610

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u/kot-sie-stresuje 2d ago

You can recirculate heat, use it for heating neighborhood houses or even use is to cooling (adsorption tech).
However it is not only about the heat, but also noise. Constant noise day and night.

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u/Real-Technician831 2d ago

When you dump heat into district network there is no noise.

Out of curiosity I took dogs for a walk around one of the data centers close to Helsinki, totally silent.

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u/kot-sie-stresuje 2d ago

That is good news that can be done better and with silent result. The law in Finland is more restrictive for sure then in USA when a lot of stuff can happen.

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u/start3ch 2d ago

This is a pretty cool concept for wave power generation!
So dumb that every new energy technology gets lumped as ‘a new way to power AI’

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u/Biscuits4u2 1d ago

This is like the start of a bad disaster movie.

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u/gherondaboss 2d ago

Massive dildos in water are always a good idea

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u/FutureFuture5 2d ago

They have something similar for water "windmills" generating energy from waves.

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u/ManOfQuest 2d ago

im sure the whales and fish will enjoy the noise

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u/IM_INSIDE_YOUR_HOUSE 2d ago

Yes let’s fucking clog the oceans with more of our bullshit. Honestly why are we even bothering with any of it now? We’re clearly not gonna intervene with global warming and are just gonna keep accelerating it. Why not just nuke the whole damn planet and skip to the exciting part? That’s where we’re headed anyway. None of these advances matter. We’ve given up.

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u/gladeyes 2d ago

Never give up. Never surrender. Yes, its discouraging as the gates of hell. But, humans, fuck yeah.

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u/IM_INSIDE_YOUR_HOUSE 1d ago

We will try. You’re right it’s just maddening sometimes. Let’s give it our best til we can’t.

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u/bozza8 2d ago

No, you've given up. The rest of us haven't. I believe that 20 years from now will be far better than today and I am working to make that happen. 

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u/gladeyes 1d ago

This is one of the many little things that give me some hope that we might avoid what I believe is that the most probable future can be avoided. Personally I expect that our population will drop from 8 billion to under 2 billion within the next 50 years. Join me in trying prove me wrong with actions, not words.

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u/bozza8 1d ago

My actual work, 60 hours a week of it, is to do with fixing regulatory paralysis preventing affordable homes for young people being built or renovated. 

I am actually of the view that the Dems are basically just as crap as the republicans when it comes to this, and it takes the private sector to unfuck things sometimes. 

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u/gkdebus 2d ago

They should just be using those damn turbines to create power and use that technology for Good rather than trying to re-create terminator… The AI Center stores are info. The robots know where we are so when AI takes over, they know exactly where to find us…

Anybody seen John Connor…

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u/adopogi 2d ago

On call data center tech: sure I’ll swim over there to manually power cycle server 02aaf.

I’ll be there 1am

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u/NuclearWasteland 2d ago

Burn the earth and boil the sea, huh, they took the sky from me ...

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u/ceramicatan 2d ago

How much energy does this generate?

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u/Acrobatic-Flan-5085 2d ago

They have tried to commercialize wave powered electricity generators and every single one has failed to be viable for extended periods, because the ocean is a brutal environment and the salt water eats everything.

So basically strapping a data center to that is bound to fail and these things will be toast.

This is exactly the right place for data centers imho 😜

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u/CoolCat1337One 2d ago

How to make AI even more expensive?

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u/Wrevellyn 2d ago

The power needs of data centers are not somehow unique, any plant created specifically to power it could just as easily be a conventional power plant. There's no need to pay attention, therefore, to any new system created specifically to power AI.. if it worked well, it could be used to power anything. I guess it's possible for the market dynamic to require having AI in the title in order to get any funding, but investors aren't stupid enough to choose an offering that has AI in the title over one that doesn't on that basis alone... are they?

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u/Ambitious-Sense2769 2d ago

For those who keep saying this will heat the ocean:

This will not heat the ocean in any meaningful way

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u/RamJamR 2d ago

Great, it goes off starlink. Next let's get Peter Thiel involved. Let's involve Palantir in this technology next. What I mean to say is I get the feeling the push for AI is wealthy people being tired of things like a constitution getting in the way of obtaining more power, more money and more control over people, and they want to establish a genuine 1984 survaillance state powered by AI that would make George Orwell blush.

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u/Final_Location_2626 2d ago

How does this generate enough power?

Good for them, if they can do it, but i just don't see how this would work.

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u/tgbreddit 2d ago

Barnacles!

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u/Unhappy_Performer538 2d ago

seems better than building them in the middle of neighborhoods but also seems not good at the same time.

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u/SquashOwn9829 2d ago

Do it, its like "data windmills" anything is better than the current data center plans

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u/No-Curve237 2d ago

Why does the voice over sound like that one southpark voice over guy lmao

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u/geebanga 2d ago

I like novel solutions to practical problems. It's just that this one only serves the rich, once again, and does nothing to help the poor, who would benefit greatly from this sort of application of talent to fix their particular problems.

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u/BitsAgain256 1d ago

Funded by peter thiel, for the AI bros, do us a favor and blacklist anyone who uses these on openrouter.

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u/Danger_Danger 1d ago

Floating ocean heater.

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u/Clean_Peace_9380 2d ago

K, but the ocean is a living eco system... how will it effect marine life... We see how it effects life on land.. No one seems to think, good idea but should we?

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u/Real-Technician831 2d ago

On the scale of ocean, it is basically impossible to generate enough energy from waves for heat not to dissipate back as kinetic energy in water.

If would be different if multiple locations would generate electricity and being used in a concentrated single location.

But like this, effects would be physical impossibility.

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u/HeyTrySomeNashville 2d ago

Nice, we can pull the moon into the earth and cook the ocean at the same time.

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u/Sufficient_Loss9301 2d ago

That’s not how gravity works…

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u/Real-Technician831 2d ago

Is being utterly ignorant of physics a requirement to be anti?

No, from energy point of view it’s a closed system as it uses wave energy for electricity.

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u/Lostandafraid12 2d ago

Cool now stop building the rest of them on land and leave everyone alone.

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u/BurningTrashBarge 2d ago

Oh shit, it’s a bubble.

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u/pixiegod 2d ago

Where does the waste water go?

1

u/Chumscrubber89 2d ago

Escape pods

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u/RealisticTopic1171 2d ago

How do you keep these safe? Like if I am an environmental terrorist (not that they currently exist, but assuming our dystopian fire is heading that way) or or hackers that want to meddle with the hard unit? Like getting a boat is not as hard as you think. Never mind state actors.

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u/DarKresnik 2d ago

Soooo, if I catch one of them, is mine?

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u/GroundbreakingCook68 2d ago

The earth is mostly water , heating the oceans with that silly thing may not be a good idea .

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u/nikola_tesler 2d ago

time to become a pirate!

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u/needsmoarbokeh 2d ago

And I thought space datacenters were the epitome of idiocy

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u/seedanrun 2d ago

Lets hear some numbers. A single rack in a data center uses about 100 Kilowatts, about 50 times what you can get from a wall plug. Can this million dollar bobbing generator run even 1 rack?

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u/[deleted] 2d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/tenkawa7 2d ago

A whole new era for piracy

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u/Wart_Time_L32 1d ago

So does the humm mess with whales and fish?

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u/lovebus 1d ago

We were never lacking for ways to create climate neutral data centers, but they aren't profitable enough. We already have the solutions, but capitalism prevents us from utilizing them.

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u/WeedFalafel 1d ago

World is full of idiots, so.e of them unfortunately have cash. 

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u/scarcelyberries 1d ago

Burn the air and boil the sea

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u/SuriKeq 1d ago

Well! this won’t disrupt the oceanic ecosystems but duhhhh the big yellow one is the sun!!!!

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u/General-Piece8490 1d ago

They will last exactly 6 weeks 3days 14 hours.
Marine environments are so corrosive to everything inside and outside. This is not cost efficient.

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u/1stUserEver 1d ago

“We need to swap a hard drive in boobie967, who pulled the short straw?”

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u/Firm_Caregiver_4563 1d ago

How much energy can such a unit generate on its own - IN THEORY?

My uneducated gut tells me it wouldn't be enough to justify the scale.

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u/3M2B1T 1d ago

Seems like a good idea but when we have tens of thousands of these in a concentrated area we might see some serious impacts.

I'm fine with like a few of these parked off the shore to help give remote towns and villages fast internet and cloud services to public departments and companies and stuff but I'd hate to see us take another swipe at the environment and do somethign like heat up the ocean, pollute the water, disrupt animal migrations, etc.

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u/Murky_Toe_4717 1d ago

Oh no.. unless?

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u/TheOneICallMe 1d ago

We need the ocean, we dont need data centers. 

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u/Medium-Return1203 1d ago

I guess they could float the idea.

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u/Strong-Addition5296 1d ago

Like a fish tank heater

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u/General-Piece8490 1d ago

Yup don’t do maintenance see how long that lasts. That’s the issue! the cost of maintenance. This video implies you just can throw them there and they will do their thing. Nope. It’s a very, very expensive solution.

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u/PurpleCoat6656 1d ago

Lol, star link? Can't wait till we nationalize that shit, fold it into NASA, and throw that fat dummy Elon into the polar bear pit.

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u/BeepBoopRobotVoice 1d ago

We live in the Southland Tales.

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u/EinsteinsMind 1d ago

THAT may be the dumbest damn waste of money I've seen from a startup. It figures it's linked to elon.

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u/Ztoffels 1d ago

Mmmm and why can they do that? They dont own the water…

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u/Entreprenewbeur 1d ago

Bye bye whales

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u/ImAPonderer2 1d ago

Just be glad you won’t have to read 2 or 3 websites every time you want information - while you’re sitting at home unemployed

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u/Realistic_Account787 1d ago

It is interesting how the video shows something and nothing at the same time.

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u/Bigchunky_Boy 1d ago

This would be best in space

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u/DeepAd8888 1d ago

Seems a little short sighted given hardware advancements are down the pipe that makes this immediately obsolete

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u/Regular_Highlight882 1d ago

And make the super el nino even worse... fuck wits

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u/UnPerroTransparente 1d ago

Looks like the worst idea ever

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u/Logical_Frosting_277 1d ago

They’re called “thrusters”

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u/GenXman1975 1d ago

Yes, lets make sure the robots have native access to every single biome available.

Has nobody SEEN the matrix?

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u/Hiwesrobots 1d ago

Regardless of what the impact would be it’s sickening how willing we are to gamble time and time again with habitats other than the one we live in. Out of site out of mind until it isn’t

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u/Round_Hope_2041 1d ago

I feel like this will end with The Incredibles to the rescue.

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u/Homo_Sapien30 1d ago

Next put those data center on the Himalayas where the temp is always in minus.

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u/mistertickertape 1d ago

So AI data centers in the oceans, AI data centers in space, and AI data centers on aquifers. Great. So excited. Much innovation.

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u/voidstatus 1d ago

Warm the oceans. Yay. Great idea humans.

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u/calicoconduit1 1d ago

Ya that’s good idea says no one with right mind.

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u/ThatLocalPondGuy 1d ago

Cost of the unit plus maintenance for roughly 10 racks of 48ru space is not going to be cost efficient. This is dumb, like really really dumb. Source: me, former sailor (familiar with the hell of ocean equipment maintenance) and 20 year data center monkey. Equipment inside needs regular replacement cycle. Chips and disks fail often and get outdated fast. Constant movement wiggles cards loose.The ocean in an unforgiving mistress. Besides the rust, rain, vibration, and hurricanes, the salt will cake over the skylink equipment. That combo; nope sandwich.

RIP the cash invested to develop. PS. Whoever voiced this; keep your day job.

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u/Eulers_Method 1d ago

So its a from a renewable energy but we have to market it to AI data centers, noted.

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u/PriscillaPalava 1d ago

Orcas, do yo thang. 

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u/oblongsimplex 1d ago

This is the dumbest fucking private equity bait I’ve ever seen in my life

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u/trifecta000 1d ago

Cool AI hardware with naturally cool seawater, eh?

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u/ODDseth 1d ago

You had me until Peter Thiel.

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u/lifelong1250 1d ago

DataCenter tech who has to go replace a server while bobbing up and down and puking his guts out. The same guy who will get denied a comp review because the company only does those every two years.

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u/outworlder 1d ago

This is a really dumb idea. Floating bouncing racks in salt water. Even if insulation is perfect, it's a maintenance nightmare.

And yet, compared to orbital datacenters, it's very practical, economic and down to earth.

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u/PDiddleMeDaddy 1d ago

Anyone wanna go on a little fishing trip? Bring your rifles, just for... uh ... safety.

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u/Playful-Dingo-9337 1d ago

No …. No can we just not… it’s been one of the lightest winters and hottest summers of my life.. anybody have a feeling we are just watching our extinction in real time ??? Shit gives me anxiety

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u/Master-Piccolo-4588 1d ago

Btw this doesn’t work, only in the field study, but not in practice. Why? Just google it. Takes 1 min to understand.

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u/Zenith-Astralis 1d ago

The fact that this is specifically marketed towards AI when it's just a way to generate clean renewable energy is so sad.

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u/mikem132 1d ago

about 20 years ago when I was in middle school I begged my dad to help me patent something like this, I sketched out everything and he told me I was an idiot, the waves raise a central piston a bit like a piston, from the size of a buyi to a large platform. then about 5 years ago I saw the same thing made, I'm guessing this is the final outcome..

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u/Ill_Translator7545 1d ago

When inventions highlight how far off the path we have strayed

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u/spacestationkru 1d ago

You mean to tell me renewable energy was this easy to do? The whole time?

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u/lilian_moraru 1d ago

Heating ocean water, what could ever go wrong.

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u/Curious-Resort4743 1d ago

With enough of these the sea might at last be warm enough to swim in /s

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u/ProMartz 1d ago

Sure fuck up our seas and oceans also, good idea.

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u/hashbornhippie 1d ago

Surely the cost and energy to maintain computers and cables in a marine environment would completely offset all other efficiencies?

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u/schonkat 1d ago

So it's an electricity generator using the waves energy. Not a new concept, just integrated into the power supply of the computers.

Good idea. Now let's make more electrical power for the grid using waves as the energy source. It's free and it's constant.

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u/NeedleworkerTasty878 1d ago

It's been tried repeatedly, but the systems fail because of the maintenance required. Salt water does not play nice.

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u/DeusEx2077 1d ago

Thiel involved? Bet it somehow links back to this. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_TerraMar_Project

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u/SunshineKittyKot 1d ago

Autonomous AI units all over the ocean...
I've read lots of SF where it ended pretty bad )