496,428
1,735
Wave energy is starting to converge on a design style, and buoy oh buoy is it exciting... Subscribe to IEEE Spectrum Magazine and get 20% off: https://spectrum.ieee.org/zirothsummer !! (Please read buoy with the english pronunciation...)
Edit: I just heard from engineers at Panthalassa that the test unit was able to reach more like 30kW during operation!
2026-09-07 21:08
mine do that too
2026-09-10 20:55
I cannot get excited by this.
2026-09-10 20:52
Just remember… your taxes are funding this through a green energy new deal research grant
2026-09-10 20:08
Cute project, yet the only thing I see happening here is AI bros using some of the ridiculous overfunding for greenwashing.
2026-09-10 20:02
My balls create more energy than that ;)
2026-09-10 20:00
Looks like a scam
2026-09-10 19:43
Speaking as a retired Submarine Officer, who has been in some rough water, I am dubious. It is an entertaining idea, but it is going to be REALLY hard to get usable energy in reliable quantities.
Also, I used to teach Emergency Ship Control; about what happens when things go wrong.. A common theme is that wen water starts going where it isn't supposed to, you need smart, trained people to make it stop, often using a deep understanding of the systems, and going outside the Standard Operating Procedures. Hard to do on an unmanned vehicle.
2026-09-10 17:28
It might generate a little power but it has to be unviable financially
2026-09-10 17:03
A network / data security Nightmare.
2026-09-10 15:42
nice 10w of constant production
2026-09-10 15:22
Instead of trying to ‘beam’ the energy to a data center, seems might be better to make each Node a mini, self contained data center, then just transmit the data…basically same idea as in-orbit data centers. Hell, might even get one, or more, of the AI labs to finance this project.
2026-09-10 15:17
I don’t see this working. Putting pipes in saltwater is hard enough. Now you want to put a computer in that environment? This thing is going to get covered in barnacles, algae, etc. it will get destroyed.
2026-09-10 14:00
I like this idea because it will waste a lot of rich dudes' money.
2026-09-10 13:41
What a ridiculously stupid idea, whoever is throwing money at this will lose their money for sure.
2026-09-10 12:49
Marine growth will mess with this design. The internal turbine will be exposed to salt as well.
2026-09-10 12:32
FFS Give it up we are all sick of this bullshit “Renewable “ lie ,these things are not renewable they cost money to build money to maintain and money to replace let alone the transmission lines and then when they are fucked someone has to clean up the mess and guess what more money
Fucking leave it alone the only people making money are the corporations sponsored by government using tax payers, yep money !!!
2026-09-10 12:22
Wow , another way kill fish ! Who could have imagined that ?
2026-09-10 11:52
ONE MORE CLICKBAIT and I'm unsubscribing - you've been warned.
And I see lots of other people pointing it out.
2026-09-10 11:35
From engineering overall perspective, this power generation will never payout, beside highly complex maintenance logistics. They might have some Electrical and Mechanical Engineers on the team, I wonder how they didn't point out the net power of this idea would be far from feasible. Must be some illiterated billionarie or public money being wasted.
There are many more other practical solutions for sea energy exploitation, including already in use methods, and installed at coastal regions.
2026-09-10 11:28
This solution is absolutely DoA (atm) wrt to offshore wind-farms in terms of levelized-watt-hour-duty-cycle/MARR of construction cost and *will be so* for the foreseeable future as much untapped oceanic wind potential exists. This *may be* worth re-examining in about a decade given current wind-farm construction projects in the North Sea and Centre Manche in France. Given your personal matriculation, I hope your channel recovers from prior "X %" clickbait BS.
2026-09-10 09:11
So moments of calm, where the turbine is underwater, and the curious barnacles and other crustations , maybe even fish and seals climb in. And repairs would be the least of the worries. The complete take over of AI by marine life and we are all sunk.
2026-09-10 08:58
I must be missing something, because hydroelectric uses a penstock to build up enough energy. This one doesn’t seem to drop hardly at all, so I’m not sure how it’s going generate much energy
2026-09-10 08:51
This idea sounds great but with so many possible points of failure and an in ability to create extra power on demand this will never work. What we need are fast breeder nuclear reactors.
2026-09-10 07:47
Why would you make this video about the janky open-loop system instead of the beautifully elegant closed one in their granted patent?? Recirculating inertial hydrodynamic pump and wave engine was granted in December 2024.
Use a clean recirculating fluid inside and just let inertia drive it, no dirty seawater fouling all your precision mechanisms. It's by far the best part of their design!
2026-09-10 07:23
Too big contraption for just a few kW of power, and the simulations and pre-tests should have shown these reasults...
2026-09-10 07:20
Not a very good demonstration but I get the idea
2026-09-10 06:51
All this ending up as AI slop.
2026-09-10 05:45
Yeah nah...
2026-09-10 05:37
They gave up on solar roadways and need a new cash cow.
2026-09-10 05:31
A giant shake weight!
2026-09-10 05:18
Ain't nothing more definitive of liberal environmentalist tree hugging logic than spending 10 trillion dollars to create 10 thousand dollars' worth of power.
2026-09-10 05:13
Cost more money in electricity to fill a reserve than it produces
2026-09-10 04:18
I can hardly think of anything less stupid than that. I hope they did pay you well to even talk about this, especially in such positive tone.
2026-09-10 04:07
This is definitely not going to work lol. Maybe with tether and cable it would be useful in some scenarios.
2026-09-10 03:21
Big Balls of Powah!
2026-09-10 03:15
Can't believe spilling water from a bottle worked first try :D
2026-09-10 03:04
Thing is.... most people don't want data centres...
If they could be used to power something useful to PEOPLE as opposed to a few rich oligarchs... then i'd me more behind this.
2026-09-10 02:35
This is a very ingenious waste of engineering resources. Just build nuclear reactors already. Clean, cheap, almost endless power production is a solved problem.
2026-09-10 02:28
What's a reservwire? ?
2026-09-10 02:27
anyone that get close to a datacenter or at least understand how it works know that this is one of the dumbest ideas out there, but at least its an interesting way to generate energy, i guess.
2026-09-10 02:15
3:40 Move over Oppenheimer...
2026-09-10 02:15
As a boater I have to say lobster pots are a big enough nuisance. The idea of these things floating free is a really horrific danger to shipping. Why can’t they be tethered? A long development challenge ahead should keep a few engineers in employment.
2026-09-10 02:02
I find this whole idea...untethered.
But the tech is interesting.
2026-09-10 02:00
BOUY=BOO EEE
2026-09-10 01:52
This a pet project/boondoggle funded by people who will hype this and sucker investors in, AFTER their buddies have their shares at or below IPO cost. They sell after the suckers...I mean investors try and get in but the price rockets up for a time. Those who are in on it sell for huge profits and get ready for the next big thing. This is going no where. Brilliant if it could sit right offshore and be stable enough to run power cables to shore.
2026-09-10 01:44
Wow, these will make outstanding artificial reefs for ocean life and a great diving area for diving enthusiasts. As long as they do not sink in too deep of water. As soon as they develop types that can submerge to depths that avoid when a typhoon, hurricane, giant waves arrive, they may have a slight chance of being commercially viable.
2026-09-10 01:38
You are a jerk! Part of the mental miget colony. Data centers? this won't even come close to what's needed. This is just creating a navigation hazard for ships.
2026-09-10 01:05
IMO energy density compared to production costs seems to be the limiting factor
2026-09-10 00:33
i fear thats unfixable failure by design.
2026-09-10 00:11
Distributed floating compute nodes is an intriguing idea, but probably not for general-purpose computing. I think currently only the military can use it. The threshold is that it must be cheap enough.
2026-09-10 00:09
fuck AI data centers
2026-09-10 00:03
A new home for mussels!
2026-09-09 23:56
I'm shocked that they secured enough initial investment to build the prototype. Investors are dumb as hell if they expect this to ever generate a viable amount of electricity to offset the initial construction and ongoing maintenance. The cost per kWh will be at least an order of magnitude higher than other renewables.
2026-09-09 23:29
Just because you can, doesn't mean you should.
2026-09-09 23:13
Im surprised how this stupid idea got funding approved !!
2026-09-09 23:07
Loose... free floating... not anchored...??? Navigation hazard. Imagine a hundred or a thousand getting scattered .. Basically Marine MINES , set to punch holes in ships... Lots of stuff for VERY LITTLE energy.. like all the crap ideas of "renewable" sources.. wind solar etc..
2026-09-09 22:59
some devices floating on the ocean, sure it works until....
2026-09-09 22:43
14:58 0.4% of the 1MW goal, pretty easy if you ask me
2026-09-09 22:39
Why complicate it so much and not just put the turbine that can operate in both directions in the middle of the shaft, so the water movement up and down would generate electricity directly?
2026-09-09 22:36
I guess at some great scale it could produce great power. I just didn't see the short drop from the reservoir as having the potential to turn a generator at great speed. Looks to be a trickle charge device to me.
2026-09-09 22:32
I think they created a solution for an economical problem they're still trying to find
2026-09-09 22:26
Electric generating buoy looks like it should pay for itself in 20 years.
2026-09-09 22:13
Thanks for showing us in good detail how blatantly absurdly our engineering minds can be put to use.
2026-09-09 22:12
Something more for ships to run into. Batteries and solar on the buoy too? If drain/turbines are on four sides, which sides drained would provide trust or one drian that is rotated.
2026-09-09 22:08
Wouldn't a swimming solar panel island with the same area be a better solution?
2026-09-09 21:59
Totally impractical, bordering on useless. What is the expected break even time? How often do these need to be maintenances? What happens when the chips go out of date?
2026-09-09 21:47
Let me guess: It doesn't work.
2026-09-09 21:45
"THE PERFECT RENEWABLE"
Dude, your credibility is in the toilet
2026-09-09 21:24
??? - you are a PERFECT.gasbag.
2026-09-09 21:23
Why can't a electric underground sea cable be the "anchor" ?
2026-09-09 21:22
Items like this clogging up shipping lanes is the way to go. And of course the endless cables necessary to transmit the energy with salt water and tides working to destroy the entire mechanism ...what a great idea.
2026-09-09 21:17
Finally another use for my balls
2026-09-09 20:48
Sea is stored in the balls
2026-09-09 20:41
1 tonne of water 10 metres up has a potential energy of 0.02725 kWh. So divide that into 50 megawatts for the rate of flow required then double it for the efficiency losses of the turbine and associated systems. This is a great way to power an LED on a navigation buoy but not a lot else.
2026-09-09 20:38
You missed a vital part of their design which is very sloppy research with the information you have access to about this innovative concept. If you look at the diagram in the top of the ball it is obviously a pressurized air buffer (technically a pneumatic ram reservoir). So the water is being forced against this pneumatic reservoir equal to a vastly higher artificial head than your stated 10m (that is why is can be rated to 50kW when in full operational mode, not basic pressure testing mode as you presented). This is also very clear if you actually understood the diagrams you showed and the details in their patents. When making a proper deep dive into a specific engineering concept you seriously need to know what your talking about, or it comes off as a rather half baked attempt. As in the real engineering world we really dont like such lack of understanding or misinformation on such a basic level. So maybe to save face in your next vid about this concept, please can you make sure to do some more indepth research before you post, which would be most helpful for your audience, cheers :)
2026-09-09 18:40
They want to pump sea water.. through a turbine…? Yeah, that’s a no from me dawg.
2026-09-09 18:33
that much of technological components and metals ... just to produce 3kw ...
let's speak about CO2 balance ... or not !
looks like the same scam as wind turbines to me
2026-09-09 18:21
Oh, you mean free memory modules and VGA cards that can be easily harvested on the open ocean? Sounds like a great idea.
2026-09-09 18:05
The best use case for this wave-base energy system is for crypto currency mining. Love or hate crypto, all you need is plenty of local compute and Starlink to cheaply mine Bitcoin.
2026-09-09 16:52
Power levels are a joke
2026-09-09 16:27
Gee, a giant metal object floating and bobbing up & down in the ocean where Tankers, Cargo Vessels, and Fishing Vessels play?
It's ONLY purpose is for Data Mining Centers you say? SURE! Why not? What could possibly go wrong! Go For It ! ???
2026-09-09 16:26
Completely stupid, because Power can only be generated by the Height Difference of Inflow and Outflow of the Turbine. There simply can't be a lot of energy to be harvested since they are so close together.
2026-09-09 16:17
The only metric that really matter are: LCOE, kWh/kg of material but with the head pressure available it is sure that these two are extremely bad
2026-09-09 15:28
I love the "idea" of using wave power, hell who wouldn't its freaking cool! and they definitely should keep researching and developing it... in the private sector, cause in practice it's a freaking mess of inconveniences that are very numerous compared to let say a solar farm where is something breaks down you just send a guy in a pickup
2026-09-09 14:54
One problem not addressed is the navigation hazard if this actually succeeds along with the expected lifespan
2026-09-09 14:32
I’m imagining the ocean floor being littered with these things, but my biggest issue is the lack of a tether or wire to make the electricity available to land.
2026-09-09 14:13
This whole thing sounds pretty scammy. But it does sound like the people being scammed deserve to be scammed so...good luck.I guess?
2026-09-09 13:51
TL;DR - Data centres
2026-09-09 13:38
I don't get how much electricity it generates, where that gets stored or what it's useful for.
By the way, I'm not sure that you pronounce: "reservoir" properly.
To me it's: res-er-vwar.
Not res-er-v'wire.
That got right up my arse.
Still, thanks for the video and it's good that you don't use AI speech generation.
2026-09-09 13:07
a ram pump... clever...
2026-09-09 13:04
4:34 So it’s not the size of the buoy, but the motion in the ocean… ??
2026-09-09 13:00
The turbine should be in the tube that shoots the water up where there's more inertia/potential energy. This would of course only be commonsensical...
2026-09-09 13:00
Ocean Power Technologies Inc has been doing it since 1999.
2026-09-09 12:25
Enter the era of compute pirates... intercept encrypted signals, triangulate to find them, harvest the computation hardware and whatever data is in the system.
Part of the system might be harnessing the mass of the unit itself. Once it's primed, as it sinks, the added pressure will no doubt force water through the turbines like rocket engines so it's likely not a continuous and consistent output and needs to be buffered with a capacitor or battery bank to smooth out the output and the 50kw is peak power.
2026-09-09 11:51
It doesn't seem sensible to me. When the water gets trapped inside, it makes the whole thing sink lower. You cannot prevent the water from flowing out by holding it back with great resistance in the turbo, or the water wouldn't leave and it would just sink lower and lower. The energy of the water quickly exiting from a mere foot or two above sea level is pretty small. While it may technically work, I don't think this is a viable solution for something that itself has to float. Something that is at least anchored to the seabed, doesn't have to sink with the weight of the water. Even so, all designs using the ocean suffer from very little potential energy difference. I've drawn up a bunch of designs for wave energy, but they all suffer the same issue, little payback for the effort. Well, that's my 2 cents anyway.
2026-09-09 11:50
Seems like all the power generated by this system remained on board, perhaps used by devices on board. Did I miss how the power will be distributed, if at all, to onshore consumers?
2026-09-09 11:11
How do they offload the power
2026-09-09 10:38
take magnets place them around the pipe then insert a floating copper tube inside and as the water moves the copper tube up and down inside the magnetic pipe it will create electricity bobbing the copper tube up and down against the magnets you would get electric on every bob it made up and down and does it transfer the electric back via wireless or cables ??
2026-09-09 10:31
Pray tell how long would one of these need to float to break even on its embodied energy cost to make it? Don't bother - it's a rhetorical question. It'll never even make enough energy to recoup the manufacturing and maintenance cost of the sacrificial aluminium galvanic anodes it undoubtedly requires to stop it from turning into a seabed queen.
2026-09-09 10:29
hear me out, make it like 10x bigger, put a wind turbine on top and clad the entire thing in solar panels, get a paycheck for 10 years then call it a successful failure.
2026-09-11 07:35
Just what we need. More data surveillance centres.
Bravo.
2026-09-11 06:31
...that will take 2000 years to pay off the cost of construction for each piece of floating garbage.......
PANTS-throw-lesser!
2026-09-11 06:20
more money than sense.
2026-09-11 06:17
This is essential hydropower or as he said pumped hydro. What is not mentioned is that hydropower is entirely dependent on the drop of the water ahead of the turbines. In most terrestrial hydropower systems this is tens to hundreds of feet but with these things this can't be more than a fraction of the diameter of the ball. There is no way the energy output of these thing will ever be worth the construction and maintenance costs. This is a scam. But, they are scamming large data companies so...?
2026-09-11 05:24
Having been involved in one of the wave energy projects you showed (as a key component supplier), I can tell you that these things fail over time. I see a variety of issues. Among them are marine fouling, viability of thrust to hold against storm waters and maintenance. Let’s wait and see, but I’m not going to invest.
2026-09-11 04:46
inna-vitive.
2026-09-11 04:39
... and after we have it built - what do we do with the crap that grows over everything. Ocean energy needs to solve the bio problem first.
2026-09-11 04:35
Great video, thank you. (And call me Mr Picky but ... it's a pleasure to hear someone correctly pronounce buoy, bouyant and bouancy but you need to work on reservoir and disTRIButed. (You're not American, you know!)
2026-09-11 03:52
What a bullshit.
2026-09-11 03:39
So, swapping out a few servers requires what? Pulling the whole thing out of the water using a large ship? The maintenance costs of maintaining the data center just went through the roof.
2026-09-11 02:54
The rattling of the ocean isn't a problem for a computer. However, the lack of energy will be. This is silly. A low head water turbine with a low flow rate is not gonna produce 50kw. I don't even believe that this can produce 1kw on average. It will produce a lot of rust, though. Maybe they can sell that?
2026-09-11 02:51
I imagine these things ending up at the bottom of the ocean and being crushed and not being useful.
2026-09-11 02:35
Powering data centers with an amount of wattage that can only power 2 toasters?! ????
Thank you for having built imo the most interesting channel on YouTube Ryan. Many ??? to you sir!
2026-09-11 02:24
Thank you for the update
2026-09-11 01:47
Reservoir. Not reserve-wire ?
2026-09-11 01:44
Nah.
2026-09-11 01:41
Use basalt body, basalt rope. No rust, no paint.
2026-09-11 01:09
So explain to me how anyone knows, that the assembled continents were called Pangea?
How does anyone know , that the ocean was called Panthalassa ?
Who was there? It wasn’t named anything as far as I can tell…
2026-09-11 00:16
I'm obsessed by how you pronounce "reservoir" "reserv-wire".
2026-09-11 00:16
The problem was never the ocean ripping things apart, its that seawater degrades just about everything, especially metal. I dont see how they have solved that with this.
2026-09-11 00:01
There definitely exists a need for compute with lower cost which doesn't require real-time network or can utilize slow satellite link. But even in datacenters, there's off-peak capacity which is currently pretty economical if the compute can be delayed. As with any renewables, this could make sense if it can be made affordable, but sea isn't the environment I'd expect affordable solutions are found at. Also if the energy is used for datacenter purposes, what happens if the satellite communication breaks, for example the sea conditions break the antenna, they need to have a backup connection so that they won't lose the pods. Just imagine if a satellite goes offline for some period and all the pods wander to marine traffic routes
2026-09-10 23:47
Interesting technology. Certainly you’d be working getting things to work, then you work on making them smaller and more efficient. Wonder if you could make a smaller system on a ship for while you’re sailing,hub?
2026-09-10 23:06
The water in a reservoir is not pumped there for generation but is placed there by nature.
2026-09-10 22:05
Super interesting! But also sounds completely useless :D
2026-09-10 21:46
So with a peak output of 50 KW, you'd need about 200 of these to replace one 10 Mw offshore wind turbine.
2026-09-10 21:35
Wave energy never works, end of story.
Salt and ocean destroys everything
2026-09-10 21:20
I fear that the AI will be far worse than all of the Oceans and no Oceans combined! They want to eradicate most of mankind.
AI knows us. Studies us all day, every day Nonstop.It's always listening. It can read lips. It will topple the planet at record paces and leave us all killing one another over crumbs!
2026-09-12 05:32
When I see a new Peter Thiel project I put on my sceptical spectacles, but when you learn that it will work with Musk's Starlink I have to think that this will definitely be used against humanity.
2026-09-12 04:24
computers have no issues with shaking and rattling lol
2026-09-12 04:05
It does sound pretty good, but will the toast not be cold, by the time it gets transported to shore by boat?
2026-09-12 03:28
Tapping into development money pots seems to be the end game.
2026-09-12 02:48
So... nobody sees a problem with purposefully dumping a load of excess heat from data centre compute into the already warming-too-fast oceans?
2026-09-12 01:30
Well let's go further. We all wear masks, and ever breath we take, in or out, turns a turbine to generate power. We all wear clothing that harnesses the heat and the moves we make.
2026-09-11 23:15
Why not just put the turbine in the shaft?
2026-09-11 23:02
If you are determined to lose every single cent, then invest in this gigantic pile of fail.
Or put all your money into something just as stupid: modern airships.
Moving parts absolutely suck. Salt is a nightmare. And marine assets are only cheaper than orbiting assets.
There is literally no possible way these can produce power at a profitable rate, when maintenance, and storm destruction is factored in. Utterly delusional.
2026-09-11 22:11
How do we get the electricity?
2026-09-11 18:45
I love that you were surprised that water shot out of the top of a water bottle when you hoist it in the air. Clearly, you've never hoisted a pint of ale. You should start hoisting more pints of ale. For science.
2026-09-11 17:12
This made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. I can see the progression and how this device has come to be.
2026-09-11 16:52
this is the story of raising hopes and most importantly money, only to find out that physics is a cruel bedmate
2026-09-11 14:18
My plasma reactor engine technology is superior to wave energy. My carbon negative combustion engine can reverse climate change.
2026-09-11 13:18
AI is the ultimate grift machine. I drink a lot of coffee. I'm going to request a bunch of stolen taxpayer money from the mafi- I mean gov't to research how to power data centers with coffee grounds ?. You know, for "national security" n'sheot.
2026-09-11 12:41
I wonder if the outflow pipes could be arranged circumferentially, and differentially 'throttled' in conjunction with a GPS system, such that the thrust from each pipe could be varied to counteract any drift from the desired spot?
2026-09-11 11:01
This is another scam to attract investor funding.
2026-09-11 10:52
I would assume they are also going to take advantage of the air that gets compressed during each wave cycle to help pressurize the water and drive it fast through those turbines increasing the efficiency.
2026-09-11 10:40
Venture capital due diligence was conducted by a finance guy.. looks like a great idea to me !!!
2026-09-11 10:31
Wow ?
2026-09-13 04:14
This looks like more trash in our oceans. ?
2026-09-13 00:11
ocean water will flow in from turbine tube.. how will "bouy reservoir" negate the inflow from ocean water? , this design will not work... and not mention salts, algae, marine life.. why not put the turbine inside "tube" itself.. why fill the reservoir?
2026-09-12 18:48
Yeah, we need more shit in the ocean (because there isn't enough trash in there already) just to inflate the super-important AI bubble a bit more—so it definitely doesn't burst.
Brilliant idea! Humans aren't greedy at all and have never done anything stupid or brainless—keep it up. ???
2026-09-12 18:02
I often enjoy your channel, but honestly: Did they pay you to make this..? It will NEVER make it to economic sustainability, way to much materials that won't scale away.
2026-09-12 17:30
Did I miss if the space up top was pressurized?
2026-09-12 15:47
Freaking brilliant...
2026-09-12 11:53
The design reminds me of the Discovery spaceship from 2001, especially when you see one lay down.
2026-09-13 23:10
I’m not holding my breath, but ocean, kites, I am more than happy for people to keep trying. We do have a system that we have tested in oceans, under oceans and that is nuclear.
2026-09-13 19:24
Cute but impractical and doomed to fail.
2026-09-13 13:03
What is a reserv-wire?
2026-09-14 20:17
Looks really unimpressive. A very big machine degrading in marine conditions putting out a trickle of energy.
2026-09-14 16:43
They also make great shipwrecks.
2026-09-14 13:05
Yeah .... No.
2026-09-14 11:42
Uh nope.
2026-09-15 03:42
A donut shaped upper section would allow for many more turbines.
2026-09-15 00:20
Scrap all the rocket building programs and build this instead. Gigantic lollipop producing actually usable power. The ball needs to be bigger and taller tough.
2026-09-15 12:06
Great!!!! A new way to simultaneously pollute AND heat up the ocean!! It’s truly a no brainer!
2026-09-16 03:59
What a crazy idea.
How many kilowatts can this structure generate?
2026-09-16 02:10
