Check out this site for some inspiration:
http://www.theverylastpageoftheinternet.com/otherdevices/MohammedAlkhamis/buoyancy.htm

Hi all
A few years ago I had nearly the same idea.
In my case it was a retaining wall. There is no doubt, that this will work. But which of both systems is more efficient, the rising and sinking container or a conventional turbine. Does a turbine consumes more water by same production of energy

@Stefan
Yes you?re absolutly right. We will need energy to bring the water up hill again. The inventor proposed to heat up the water and let the steam rise up hill in a pipe where it can condense.
Now think a few seconds about the principle of a "BHKW". I don?t know how this is called in english so I will try to explain it. There is a simple engine, driven by gas, gasoline or any other fuel, that drives a generator that produces electricity. The engine produces as secondary product, heat, that is used for heating up a house for example.

The same principal we can now transfer to this setup. Primary product: heating up water, secondary product: let the shuttlecontainer rise up again. Finally it doesn?t matter where I do heat up my water, over ground or in 100 m depth.

We can also go a step further an install this "BHKW" in 100 m depth, so the system becomes even more efficient.
Primary = electricity, secondary heat, and tertiary bouyancy = electricity.

What do think?
 

Hi all
A few years ago I had nearly the same idea.
In my case it was a retaining wall. There is no doubt, that this will work. But which of both systems is more efficient, the rising and sinking container or a conventional turbine. Does a turbine consumes more water by same production of energy

@Stefan
Yes you?re absolutly right. We will need energy to bring the water up hill again. The inventor proposed to heat up the water and let the steam rise up hill in a pipe where it can condense.
Now think a few seconds about the principle of a "BHKW". I don?t know how this is called in english so I will try to explain it. There is a simple engine, driven by gas, gasoline or any other fuel, that drives a generator that produces electricity. The engine produces as secondary product, heat, that is used for heating up a house for example.

The same principal we can now transfer to this setup. Primary product: heating up water, secondary product: let the shuttlecontainer rise up again. Finally it doesn?t matter where I do heat up my water, over ground or in 100 m depth.

We can also go a step further an install this "BHKW" in 100 m depth, so the system becomes even more efficient.
Primary = electricity, secondary heat, and tertiary bouyancy = electricity.

What do think?
 

this is great! underwater pressure is not a problem for electricity, we just need a little heat for the shuttle to travel a very long distance to provide enough kinetic energy to feed it back to the system   

hartiberlin what do you think?