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Surf’s up!New form of clean energy offers limitless source of headline puns.
A new tide. A coming wave of clean energy. An ocean of opportunity. Forget the sun and wind — tidal energy open up an exciting new trove of headline puns for aspiring clean tech writers. The past week has seen an, ahem, boatload of news regarding wave energy. Most excitingly, the world’s first commercial wave farm went live off the coast of Portugal. The installation has a capacity of 2.25 megawatts and plans to expand to 21 megawatts, enough electricity to power 15,000 homes. Tidal energy converters come in a variety of forms. The ones in Portugal consist of articulated snakelike platforms. As waves roll past the platforms, the motion drives internal generators. See it in action: Elsewhere, ScottishPower is planning a large wave farm off the coast of Scotland and Northern Ireland. The project will employ underwater turbines, similar in form and function to windmills, to generate enough power for 60,000 homes.
Closer to home, California regulators just torpedoed (get it? get it?) a proposed trial wave farm to be built by Finavera. The Public Utilities Commission deemed the technology unproven and too expensive. Finavera’s AquaBuOY energy capture system consists of floating devices that bob vertically in the surf, driving seawater through an internal generator. I notice in the picture that they’ve also slapped wind turbines and solar panels on top of the buoys, which seems like gilding the lily. Maybe they could also try getting an ethanol plant and a tiny nuclear reactor on there as well. Finally, Alla Weinstein is pushing forward a proposal to erect a floating wind turbine off the coast of Oregon. A floating wind turbine is another flavor of offshore wind farm, with the advantage that the turbines can be assembled on land and then sited in deeper water than conventional offshore wind turbines. What does this have to do with wave energy? Well, not much really, but Weinstein is the creator of the AquaBuOY technology that she later sold to Finavera. She’s also one of the clean tech entrepreneurs featured in Earth: The Sequel, and it looks like she’s still hammering away on ocean-based solutions to our energy needs. Good for her. Comments
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This is an advance in technology that conservatives, liberals, and moderates can all consider a good idea. These projects are fantastic to the degree they reduce our dependence on dictator-supplied oilfields (which accounts for most oil fields on the planet).
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here is a link for a new technology being funded in Ohio based on the same type of wave energy. Great to see inovations evolve. Keep up the great reporting.
http://blog.cleveland.com/business/2008/10/_aaron_lemieux_says_he.html#more
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If energy generating buoys are going to take up ocean space, putting wind turbines and photo-voltaics on them makes tremendous sense. It maximizes the energy extracted from a given amount of surface area. Many folks don't realize how much competition there is for use of the ocean. And every energy generating device on the surface is a hazard to navigation. Now, if the energy generating buoys were used in place of existing aids to navigation or as additional ones...
[Ed. -- the stuff about the solar panels and wind turbines was kind of just a joke. Presumably the buoys needs a source of power for on-board electronics.]
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Once again, California and the rest of the US will bring up the rear instead of leading the way on the green tech frontier. Sad.
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Looks great!
I just hope it doesn't harm the oceans.
They can't take any more use and abuse from us.
Any oceanologists our there?
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Hi Lora, I'm not an oceanologist but you can take a look at the recent Oregon State University environmental study on the impact of wave energy.
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Well, if it is not feasible to have wind and solar harnessing equipment on them to contribute to the tidal energy, atleast they can have them at a small scale to power the on-board electronics.
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Harnessing Wave power, including Palamis is still considered costly, Anaconda is just bobbing its hood up, but hasn't been sponsored on big scale. AquaBuOY is considered to be ideal option by some American Experts. Incidentally the Solar panels and small wind turbines on the device is only for the on board controls as Sandy has rightly pointed out.
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