Pressure-regulating hydrodynamic pump and wave engine with energy product generation and transport

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-12435692-B2
Application number	US-202418967499-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Dec 3, 2024
Priority date	Dec 8, 2023
Publication date	Oct 7, 2025
Grant date	Oct 7, 2025

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.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method of generating a computational product, the method comprising:
capturing energy from waves of a body of water with a buoyant wave energy converter, the buoyant wave energy converter comprising a hollow buoyant reservoir, an injection tube fluidly coupled to the hollow buoyant reservoir, the injection tube configured to impel water into the hollow buoyant reservoir when a portion of the injection tube oscillates vertically beneath a waterline, a fluid path having an inlet fluidly coupled to an interior of the hollow buoyant reservoir, the fluid path having an outlet, and the fluid path configured to remove water from the hollow buoyant reservoir, a chamber fluidly coupled to the outlet of the fluid path and to the hollow buoyant reservoir, the chamber comprising a fluid drain aperture, an air ingestion pipe coupled to the hollow buoyant reservoir and to the chamber, and an air inlet conduit coupled to the air ingestion pipe; and
using the captured energy to power a computing system coupled to the buoyant wave energy converter to generate the computational product.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the buoyant wave energy converter further comprises a turbine within the fluid path.

3. The method of claim 2 , wherein the turbine is proximate to the outlet of the fluid path.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the computational product is a digital good.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the computational product is generated by executing a computational algorithm.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the computational product is a cryptocurrency.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein the computational product is a blockchain block header.

8. The method of claim 1 , wherein the computational product is a trained machine learning algorithm.

9. The method of claim 1 , wherein the computational product is an artificial intelligence inference output.

10. The method of claim 1 , wherein the computational product is a sequence of tokens produced by an artificial neural network.

11. The method of claim 1 , wherein the computing system is on a platform of the buoyant wave energy converter.

12. The method of claim 1 , wherein the computing system is configured with a plurality of processing systems integrated with each other in order to perform complex computer processing operations.

13. The method of claim 1 , wherein the computing system is configured to implement one or more of data center hosting, implementing blockchain mining, training machine learning (ML) algorithms, or training artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms.

14. A method of generating a chemical, the method comprising:
capturing energy from waves of a body of water with a buoyant wave energy converter, the buoyant wave energy converter comprising a hollow buoyant reservoir, an injection tube fluidly coupled to the hollow buoyant reservoir, the injection tube configured to impel water into the hollow buoyant reservoir when a portion of the injection tube oscillates vertically beneath a waterline, a fluid path having an inlet fluidly coupled to an interior of the hollow buoyant reservoir, the fluid path having an outlet, and the fluid path configured to remove water from the hollow buoyant reservoir, a chamber fluidly coupled to the outlet of the fluid path and to the hollow buoyant reservoir, the chamber comprising a fluid drain aperture, an air ingestion pipe coupled to the hollow buoyant reservoir and to the chamber, and an air inlet conduit coupled to the air ingestion pipe; and
using the captured energy to generate the chemical.

15. The method of claim 14 , wherein the buoyant wave energy converter further comprises a turbine within the fluid path.

16. The method of claim 15 , wherein the turbine is proximate to the outlet of the fluid path.

17. The method of claim 14 , wherein the chemical is hydrogen gas.

18. The method of claim 14 , wherein the chemical is methanol.

19. The method of claim 14 , wherein the chemical is HCl.

20. The method of claim 14 , wherein the chemical is a fuel.

21. A method of generating a biological product, the method comprising:
capturing energy from waves of a body of water with a buoyant wave energy converter, the buoyant wave energy converter comprising a hollow buoyant reservoir, an injection tube fluidly coupled to the hollow buoyant reservoir, the injection tube configured to impel water into the hollow buoyant reservoir when a portion of the injection tube oscillates vertically beneath a waterline, a fluid path having an inlet fluidly coupled to an interior of the hollow buoyant reservoir, the fluid path having an outlet, and the fluid path configured to remove water from the hollow buoyant reservoir, a chamber fluidly coupled to the outlet of the fluid path and to the hollow buoyant reservoir, the chamber comprising a fluid drain aperture, an air ingestion pipe coupled to the hollow buoyant reservoir and to the chamber, and an air inlet conduit coupled to the air ingestion pipe; and
using the captured energy to generate the biological product.

22. The method of claim 21 , wherein the buoyant wave energy converter further comprises a turbine within the fluid path.

23. The method of claim 22 , wherein the turbine is proximate to the outlet of the fluid path.

24. The method of claim 21 , wherein the biological product is algae.

25. The method of claim 21 , wherein the biological product is fish.

Assignees

• Lone Gull Holdings Ltd

Inventors

• Sheldon-Coulson Garth Alexander
• Moffat Brian Lee

Classifications

• F05B2260/60

  Fluid transfer · CPC title

• F03B13/06 Primary

  Stations or aggregates of water-storage type, {e.g. comprising a turbine and a pump}(turbines characterised by having means for functioning alternatively as pumps F03B3/10) · CPC title

• F03B13/145

  for immediate use in an energy converter · CPC title

• F03B13/142

  which creates an oscillating water column · CPC title

• F03B13/22

  using the flow of water resulting from wave movements to drive a motor or turbine {(F03B13/144 takes precedence)} · CPC title