Abstract: A buoyant hydrodynamic pump is disclosed that can float on a surface of a body of water over which waves tend to pass. Embodiments incorporate an open-bottomed tube with a constriction. The tube partially encloses a substantial volume of water with which the tube's constriction interacts, creating and/or amplifying fluid-flow oscillations therein in response to wave action. Wave-driven oscillations result in periodic upward ejections of portions of the water inside the tube that can be collected in a reservoir that is at least partially positioned above the mean water level of the body of water, or pressurized by compressed air or gas, or both. Water within such a reservoir may return to the body of water via a turbine, thereby generating electrical power (making the device a wave engine), or the device's pumping action can be used for other purposes such as water circulation, propulsion, dissolved minerals extraction, or cloud seeding.

Abstract: A pressure-regulating buoyant hydrodynamic pump is disclosed that floats adjacent to a surface of a body of water over which waves tend to pass. In response to wave-induced movements of the device, water is drawn into a mouth at a lower end of an injection tube, and water is ejected from a mouth at an upper end of the injection tube. The ejected water is deposited into an interior of the hollow buoy thereby augmenting a water reservoir therein. And water flows from the water reservoir to and through a water turbine, thereby energizing a generator, power electronics, and an electrical load. A novel water-turbine effluent buffering tube, or chamber, smooths pressure variations felt across the water turbine.

Abstract: Disclosed is a novel type of computing apparatus which is integrated within a buoy that obtains the energy required to power its computing operations from waves that travel across the surface of the body of water on which the buoy floats. Additionally, these self-powered computing buoys utilize their close proximity to a body of water in order to significantly lower the cost and complexity of cooling their computing circuits. Computing tasks of an arbitrary nature are supported, as is the incorporation and/or utilization of computing circuits specialized for the execution of specific types of computing tasks. And, each buoy's receipt of a computational task, and its return of a computational result, may be accomplished through the transmission of data across satellite links, fiber optic cables, LAN cables, radio, modulated light, microwaves, and/or any other channel, link, connection, and/or network.

Abstract: A novel architecture for a data sharing system (DSS) is disclosed and seeks to ensure the privacy and security of users' personal information. In this type of network, a user's personally identifiable information is stored and transmitted in an encrypted form, with few exceptions. The only key with which that encrypted data can be decrypted, and thus viewed, remains in the sole possession of the user and the user's friends/contacts within the system. This arrangement ensures that a user's personally identifiable information cannot be examined by anyone other than the user or his friends/contacts. This arrangement also makes it more difficult for the web site or service hosting the DSS to exploit its users' personally identifiable information. Such a system facilitates the encryption, storage, exchange and decryption of personal, confidential and/or proprietary data.

Abstract: Disclosed is an apparatus that floats at the surface of a body of water over which waves pass. Passing waves cause a nominally vertical axis of the apparatus to tilt away from an axis normal to the resting surface of the body of water. Tilting of sufficient magnitude and duration allows a fluid to flow through a channel that in an un-tilted apparatus would require the gravitational potential energy of the fluid to increase (i.e., to flow uphill), but, because of the tilt allows the fluid to flow through the channel in a downhill direction. Flowing water is trapped at a plurality of levels which in an un-tilted apparatus are higher than the respective levels from which the fluid has flowed. A subsequent tilt of the apparatus in a sufficiently different direction, and of a sufficient magnitude and duration, causes the trapped water to flow to new, yet higher levels.

Abstract: Embodiments disclosed herein include buoyant wave energy converters. In an embodiment, the wave energy converter comprises an upper chamber having a first fluid reservoir and a first gas pocket, and a lower chamber having a second fluid reservoir and a second gas pocket. An injection tube is between and fluidly coupled to the upper chamber and the lower chamber, where the injection tube is to impel a fluid from the second fluid reservoir into the first fluid reservoir when the upper chamber, the lower chamber and the injection tube oscillate about a waterline with the upper chamber adjacent to the waterline and the lower chamber below the waterline and vertically beneath the upper chamber. In an embodiment, an effluent tube is fluidly coupled to the upper chamber and the lower chamber, where the effluent tube is to return the fluid from the first fluid reservoir to the second fluid reservoir.

Abstract: Embodiments include a buoyant wave energy converter. In an embodiment, the wave energy converter comprises an upper chamber having a first fluid reservoir and a first gas pocket, and a lower chamber having a second fluid reservoir and a second gas pocket. In an embodiment, an injection tube is between and fluidly coupled to the upper chamber and the lower chamber, where the injection tube is to impel a fluid from the second fluid reservoir into the first fluid reservoir when the upper chamber, the lower chamber and the injection tube oscillate about a waterline with the upper chamber adjacent to the waterline and the lower chamber submerged below the waterline and vertically beneath the upper chamber. An effluent tube is fluidly coupled to the upper chamber and the lower chamber, where the effluent tube is to return the fluid from the first fluid reservoir to the injection tube.

Abstract: A system and method by which energy from ocean waves is converted into hydrogen, and that hydrogen is used to manifest electrical and mechanical energies by an energy consuming device. A portion of the generated electrical power is communicated to water electrolyzers which produce oxygen and hydrogen from water as gases. At least a portion of the generated hydrogen gas is transferred to a transportation ship via a hose-carrying, remotely operated (or otherwise unmanned) vehicle, and subsequently transferred to an energy-consuming module or infrastructure, where a portion of the hydrogen is consumed in order to manifest a generation of electrical energy, a mechanical motion, and/or a chemical reaction.

Abstract: A method by which an environmental energy (e.g., wave energy) is harvested, converted into electrical power, and thereafter used to electrolyze seawater into hydrogen and chlorine gases. Those gases are recombined into hydrogen chloride from which is formed hydrochloric acid solution which is diluted and deposited at a depth sufficient to ensure its neutralization and sequestration for a significant period of time (e.g., for over a millennium). By removing chloride ions from a portion of the sea adjacent to its upper surface and depositing them into a portion of the sea more adjacent to its bottom, acidity is shifted from the surface to base of the sea, and the surface ocean is given a greater ability to absorb and buffer atmospheric carbon dioxide without a corresponding increase in acidity.

Abstract: Disclosed is an apparatus, system, and method, by which a difference in the thermal energies, and/or temperatures, of two bodies, materials, gases, liquids, solids, objects, and/or other groups or collections of matter, may be harnessed to provide mechanical energy to a rotary engine and/or shaft. Also disclosed is an apparatus, system, and method, by which mechanical energy (e.g., the rotation of a shaft) may be used to produce and/or amplify a difference in the thermal energies, and/or temperatures of, and/or between, two bodies, materials, gases, liquids, solids, objects, and/or other groups or collections of matter. The disclosed thermal-to-mechanical energy conversion apparatus, as well as the complementary mechanical-to-thermal energy conversion apparatus, lacks moving parts and therefore satisfies a previously unmet need for a simple, robust, and efficient heat engine.

Abstract: An energy-harvesting compute grid includes computing assemblies that cooperate with mobile energy harvesters configured to be deployed on a body of water. The plurality of energy harvesters are positioned on and move adjacent to an upper surface of a body of water, and the locations of the energy harvesters can be monitored and controlled. The wide-spread gathering by the harvesters of environmental data within that geospatial area permits the forecasting of environmental factors, the discovery of advantageous energy-harvesting opportunities, the observation and tracking of hazardous objects and conditions, the efficient distribution of data and/or tasks to and between the harvesters included in the compute grid, the efficient execution of logistical operations to support, upgrade, maintain, and repair the cluster, and the opportunity to execute data-gathering across an area much larger than that afforded by an individual harvester (e.g.

Abstract: A system and method by which energy from ocean waves is converted into hydrogen, and that hydrogen is used to manifest electrical and mechanical energies by an energy consuming device. A portion of the generated electrical power is communicated to water electrolyzers which produce oxygen and hydrogen from water as gases. At least a portion of the generated hydrogen gas is transferred to a transportation ship via a hose-carrying, remotely operated (or otherwise unmanned) vehicle, and subsequently transferred to an energy-consuming module or infrastructure, where a portion of the hydrogen is consumed in order to manifest a generation of electrical energy, a mechanical motion, and/or a chemical reaction.

Abstract: Disclosed is an apparatus, system, and method, by which a plentiful supply of carbon dioxide may be provided to a fuel-conversion process operated in the deep sea far from shore thereby permitting a conversion of electrolysis-generated hydrogen gas into a carbonaceous liquid fuel. Because the cost and complexity of storing and transporting liquid fuels by ship is substantially simpler and less costly than is transporting gases, the present invention is expected to promote the extraction and distribution of energy harvested from the deep sea by permitting it to be accomplished with reasonable logistical complexity and at a reasonable and low cost.

Abstract: A system and method by which energy from ocean waves is converted into hydrogen, and that hydrogen is used to manifest electrical and mechanical energies by an energy consuming device. A portion of the generated electrical power is communicated to water electrolyzers which produce oxygen and hydrogen from water as gases. At least a portion of the generated hydrogen gas is transferred to a transportation ship via a hose-carrying, remotely operated (or otherwise unmanned) vehicle, and subsequently transferred to an energy-consuming module or infrastructure, where a portion of the hydrogen is consumed in order to manifest a generation of electrical energy, a mechanical motion, and/or a chemical reaction.

Abstract: Disclosed is an autonomous vessel comprising a hydrodynamic pump that converts the energy of ocean waves into electrical power when the vessel is floating adjacent to an upper surface of an ocean, and utilizes a portion of the generated electrical power produced to charge an electrical energy storage device. The vessel may submerge itself, and then propel itself beneath the water's surface, after which it may return to the surface and resume its production of electrical energy and recharge its electrical energy storage device.

Abstract: Embodiments disclosed herein include a buoyant wave energy converter. In an embodiment, the wave energy converter comprises an upper chamber having a first fluid reservoir and a first gas pocket, and a lower chamber having a second fluid reservoir and a second gas pocket. In an embodiment, an injection tube is between and fluidly coupled to the upper chamber and the lower chamber, where the injection tube is to impel a fluid from the second fluid reservoir into the first fluid reservoir when the upper chamber, the lower chamber and the injection tube oscillate about a waterline with the upper chamber adjacent to the waterline and the lower chamber submerged below the waterline and vertically beneath the upper chamber. In an embodiment, an effluent tube is fluidly coupled to the upper chamber and the lower chamber, where the effluent tube is to return the fluid from the first fluid reservoir to the second fluid reservoir.

Abstract: Disclosed is an apparatus, system, and method, by which a gaseous chemical, e.g., hydrogen gas, can be retrieved by, stored within, and transported by, a low-cost autonomous vessel. The vessel is deployed, and operates, within a body of water. A submerged portion of the vessel is subjected to an ambient hydrostatic pressure that is used to compress the stored gases. A spar buoy that floats adjacent to a surface of the body of water regulates and stabilizes a depth of the submerged portion. A single pressure-tolerant chamber within the submerged portion is used to acquire gas from a gas provider and to equilibrate the pressure of the gas so acquired. The pressure-equilibrated and/or pressure-balanced gas is then drawn into a first gas storage tank through a venting of an approximately equal volume of another gas, e.g., air, from a second gas storage tank, resulting in a gas transfer at an approximately constant pressure.

Abstract: Embodiments include a buoyant wave energy converter. In an embodiment, the wave energy converter comprises an upper chamber having a first fluid reservoir and a first gas pocket, and a lower chamber having a second fluid reservoir and a second gas pocket. In an embodiment, an injection tube is between and fluidly coupled to the upper chamber and the lower chamber, where the injection tube is to impel a fluid from the second fluid reservoir into the first fluid reservoir when the upper chamber, the lower chamber and the injection tube oscillate about a waterline with the upper chamber adjacent to the waterline and the lower chamber submerged below the waterline and vertically beneath the upper chamber. An effluent tube is fluidly coupled to the upper chamber and the lower chamber, where the effluent tube is to return the fluid from the first fluid reservoir to the injection tube.

Abstract: A pressure-regulating buoyant hydrodynamic pump is disclosed that floats adjacent to a surface of a body of water over which waves tend to pass. In response to wave-induced movements of the device, water is drawn into a mouth at a lower end of an injection tube, and water is ejected from a mouth at an upper end of the injection tube. The ejected water is deposited into an interior of the hollow buoy thereby augmenting a water reservoir therein. And water flows from the water reservoir to and through a water turbine, thereby energizing a generator, power electronics, and an electrical load. A novel water-turbine effluent buffering tube, or chamber, smooths pressure variations felt across the water turbine.

Abstract: Disclosed is a novel type of computing apparatus which is integrated within a buoy that obtains the energy required to power its computing operations from waves that travel across the surface of the body of water on which the buoy floats. Additionally, these self-powered computing buoys utilize their close proximity to a body of water in order to significantly lower the cost and complexity of cooling their computing circuits. Computing tasks of an arbitrary nature are supported, as is the incorporation and/or utilization of computing circuits specialized for the execution of specific types of computing tasks. And, each buoy's receipt of a computational task, and its return of a computational result, may be accomplished through the transmission of data across satellite links, fiber optic cables, LAN cables, radio, modulated light, microwaves, and/or any other channel, link, connection, and/or network.