Peckham's river power project gains momentum

When Nick Peckham talks about his plan to generate power from the world’s rivers, he sounds more like a philosopher and anthropologist than the owner of an architectural firm.
Peckham, originally trained at the US Merchant Marine Academy and a licensed engineer, is in the early phases of developing a hydroelectric device he patented and named RioGen, essentially a floating paddle wheel meant to harness the steady power of a river to generate electricity.
“Anyone who’s been on the river recognizes the power that it has,” Peckham said.
RioGen is based on a principle of physics known as the nozzle effect, in which simply narrowing the influx of water into the paddlewheel increases the force of the water. The paddlewheel would rotate slowly enough as to not harm fish and other wildlife.
Most of the world’s hydroelectric power is generated by turbines at the bottom of dams that also use the kinetic energy of flowing water. The electricity is generated without burning coal or natural gas, but Peckham points out that dams damage the environment, including fish habitats, and often force people from their property.
“We don’t want to do what we did to the Colorado River, which is dam it up, dry it up, screw it up,” Peckham said.

He sees the floating hydropower device as what his former professor R. Buckminster Fuller described as “comprehensive anticipatory design science” for a world that grows more populated each day and an economy based on fossil fuels.
“Without energy, we really don’t really have an economy,” Peckham said. He’s hopeful that the future, with the help of inventions such as the RioGen, could be brighter.
Peckham received a patent for the RioGen in May 2008 and has sought to get the idea off the ground since. He said the employees of the patent office, who normally look within the past century for preexisting patents, scanned as far back as the 19th century. Back then, water wheels on creeks and river canals were used to grind grain into flour.
“They couldn’t believe that somebody hadn’t done this,” Peckham said.
In fact, Peckham’s patent points out that Greeks used power from waterwheels more than 2,000 years ago.

To move the RioGen off the drawing board, Peckham assembled a group of specialists in the realms of engineering, grant writing and business.
For help designing and perfecting the engineering of the generator, he was advised by Roger Fales, an MU professor with years of experience in fluid power and mechanics. Robert Glidewell, a grant writer for MU’s Trulaske College of Business, is on board to find funding for the research and development phase of the project. Brian Ash, a former city of Columbia member and Bambino’s restaurant owner is taking care of RioGen’s marketing and promotion.
Ash persuaded Peckham to name the company Current Power and helped design the logo, which includes a blue paddle wheel and the tagline, “The Future is Current.”
Glidewell said the team is in the process of applying for small-business grants through the National Science Foundation as well as the federal departments of energy and defense. The grants would provide funding to allow the team to test and fine-tune the design, build a prototype and eventually start privately manufacturing the RioGen.
“We’re still trying to do some hard scientific study on the design,” Peckham said. Preliminary estimates for the efficiency of the RioGen float between 30 and 50 percent.
Ash said the RioGen could potentially bring green energy jobs to struggling Missouri River towns, by manufacturing the device, using it to generate power and to attract high tech companies with the incentive of free electricity.
Glidewell said the team hopes to eventually add solar and wind capabilities to the RioGen, which could be dropped in rivers anywhere and thus serve strategic purposes for the military or Third World countries.
Its low-cost and small-scale design could generate enough electricity to power a small clinic in a Third World country, Glidewell said.
The group hopes to start receiving grant money and building a prototype this year or early next year.