Wave Energy

As we search for new ways to harvest energy, scientists are truing their focus on the ever-powerful ocean. Off the coast of Oregon, construction of machines that harvest energy from the ocean's waves, has begun. Wave power draws from the energy of ocean surface waves, according to Phil Pellegrino, spokesman for New Jersey-based developer Ocean Power Technologies, which is developing the project. A float on a buoy rises and falls with the waves, driving a plunger up and down, he explained. The plunger is connected to a hydraulic pump that converts the vertical movement into rotary motion, driving an electrical generator. Electricity produced is sent to shore over a submerged cable, he said. The first buoy will measure 150 feet tall by 40 feet wide, weigh 200 tons and cost $4 million, Pellegrino said. Nine more buoys are planned to deploy at a site in Reedsport, Oregon, by 2012, at a total cost of $60 million, he said.
Hopefully this will work. The world's first commercial wave farm opened in 2008 off the coast of Portugal, at the Aguçadoura Wave Park. It ran into financial difficulties last year and was suspended indefinitely, according to a statement from Pelamis Wave Power of Scotland, part owner of the project.
A wave-power device from another company, Finavera Renewables of Canada, sank off Oregon's coast two years ago, Pellegrino said.
Because the technology is still being developed, wave power costs five or six times as much as wind power, said Marianne Boust, senior analyst for Emerging Energy Research, an alternative energy advisory firm in Cambridge, Mass. Boust said she believes that wave power eventually will be competitive with other alternative power sources, because waves are more predictable than either wind or sun.
If this works it will be a great advancement. I fully support all attempts at finding alternative ways to fuel the power thirst American culture we live in. Here is the full article.