New Wave Power Research Rising Off Oregon Coast

necro81 writes "A prototype buoy has been launched off the Oregon coast to try generating electrical power from the ever-present waves. The OSU device works like a giant shake-up flashlight. It is one of several competing designs to take advantage of a potential clean energy goldmine. It will be years before substantial power is contributed to the grid, but several companies have received permits to develop test platforms. The New York Times has an article that surveys the current outlook for wave energy, which it compares to wind energy's prospects back in the 1980s. Concerns about impacts to wildlife and fishing remain to be answered."

Anchoring is the issue

[ThreeGigs]

Biggest problem with using a 'float height' generation system is the bottom anchor. The seafloor isn't all that sturdy to support constant tugging. Plus, the conservationists will have a point in that the bottom anchors will be disruptive to the seafloor ecology.

Re:Laws of Physics

[LBArrettAnderson]

You're right about the energy being dispersed and reflected, but only a very small portion of wave energy goes back into the ocean. Most of it is absorbed by the beach. If this weren't the case the waves would be just as large going back out as they are coming in. Sure, sometimes the waves going back out are visible, but they are much smaller and it doesn't happen very often -- especially on shallow sandy beaches (think how much energy is lost in (very inelastic) collisions and sound (beaches are loud)).

Re:Sounds good

[CastrTroy]

That's OK, in 20 years when we really need the power, there won't be any more fish in the sea, so there will be no fishing industry to complain.

Wave and Tidal...

[PhotoGuy]

It always surprised me that wave and tidal energy weren't harnessed more. Wave energy is really just wind energy thrown into a thick medium which should allow us to extract it in all its concentrated goodness. (And wind, in turn, is caused by solar heating.)

But what always seemed more dramatic to me, however, are the tides. Especially living in an area with the highest tides in the world, seeing phenomenal amounts of water come in and out with a 6 foot difference, twice a day, always struck me as having a lot more potential (ha ha) than other sources of renewable energy. Effectively harnessing the gravitation pull of our moon through the tides, always seemed to me to be a solution that was too good to be true. There are days when the sea is calm and the wing generators are slower due to lack of wind; coal and oil prices vary wildly. But nothing stops the tides, day or night; the energy available and its cost is 100% predictable, which is a rarity among energy sources.

In Nova Scotia, we have tidal power plant [nspower.ca] which generates power from the tides. However, it seems to be in a constant state of research, politics, grants, and such, and is fairly small. (Even twenty years ago, it was in this state; instead of referring to it by its name, the "Fundy Tidal Project," people used to refer to it as the "Tidy Fundal Project.") The amount of energy that could be captured from even a small part of the Bay of Fundy [wikipedia.org] is staggering. Yes, it would be quite an engineering feat, but not really anything beyond other megaprojects. It's sad we haven't progressed further in harnessing this.

Re:Wave and Tidal...

[LWATCDR]

Well for tidal power there are a few problems.
1. They Bay of Fundy is kind of unusual. There is a lack of sites that are really that good.
2. Enviromental impact. Tidal areas tend to be very sensitive.
3. Cost. Except at few places tidal energy isn't very dense. It would require constructing huge systems.

Scotlands cool wave tech

[Anonymous Coward]

Scotland has all sorts of cool wave projects on the go.

There's a cool sub-sea wave farm which use the pressure changes to drive a generator.
http://www.alternative-energy-news.info/wave-power-scotland/ [alternativ...-news.info]

A huge 'snank' made of several sections, there are hydraulic rams between each section, which drive a generator.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/4805076.stm [bbc.co.uk]

The Isle wave project which uses wave power at the shoreline. When the wave hits it fills a tank, pushing out air to drive a turbine. The first one worked really well in the 70's but just after it was built there was a bad storm which trashed it!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/1032148.stm [bbc.co.uk]

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

some wave power devices already "semi" commercial

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.pelamiswave.com/index.php [pelamiswave.com]

Re:Wave "as good as good as wind" is useless

[ceoyoyo]

Hm... I think about a third of our power is provided by wind. The wind farm is on prairie farmland, with crops growing underneath. Wind power is a little more expensive -- we can choose what mix of it we want in with our coal/gas power. I think it costs around 30% more. Several of the malls in the city have stickers on the doors saying that they're wind powered. The city runs the trains off wind as well. Several places in Europe make us look like wind power amateurs.

Not everywhere has the wind resources we do, but in many places wind power doesn't ruin any land and provides a decent amount of power at not much higher cost than fossil fuels.

There was a google tech talk about this

[The Prognosticator]

There's a really interesting Google tech talk about this [google.com] from a company who has been developing a system to harvest wave energy by placing giant floating "snakes" at the surface. It turns out that they are aiming to harvest in sea depths where the wave energy does not come from the tides, but instead from the wind blowing on the water, so indirectly it's "wind" energy.

They address optimum places to locate wave farms (sea depth, wind constancy) and even did an environmental impact study. If all the wave energy that is feasible to harvest is harvested, it could completely offset the CO2 emissions from US electricity production.

Re:Sounds good

[owndao]

I'm kind of dissappointed that the parent post was rated "Funny" as this is an actual problem.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/02/AR2006110200913.html/ [washingtonpost.com]

World's Fish Supply Running Out, Researchers Warn
The 14 researchers from Canada, Panama, Sweden, Britain and the United States spent four years analyzing fish populations, catch records and ocean ecosystems to reach their conclusion. They found that by 2003 -- the last year for which data on global commercial fish catches are available -- 29 percent of all fished species had collapsed, meaning they are now at least 90 percent below their historic maximum catch levels.
The rate of population collapses has accelerated in recent years. As of 1980, just 13.5 percent of fished species had collapsed, even though fishing vessels were pursuing 1,736 fewer species then. Today, the fishing industry harvests 7,784 species commercially.
"It's like hitting the gas pedal and holding it down at a constant level," Worm said in a telephone interview. "The rate accelerates over time."

I believe that this trend was again confirmed in 2007.