Wave Energy Parks Could Be Coming To Oregon
by Warren McLaren, Sydney on 05.30.06
Columbia, Oregon State University are in the thick of it again. Previously we noted they had help develop a soy based timber adhesive that was free of formaldehyde and were working with farmers to bring microtechnology to the production of biodiesel. Now they are dreaming up farms of a different sort. Wave farms. The idea is to plant direct drive, wave energy buoys off the coast of Oregon.
Unlike many of the other wave energy sources we’ve covered before, these work on a very different principle. In very basic terms a permanent neodymium-iron-born magnet is forced back and through an electric coil by the modulation of waves. The researchers suggest such buoys could power about 20% of Oregon’s electricity needs. This is US’s only university research program into ocean wave energy extraction funded from federal resources. Now that the prototypes buoys have demonstrated their potential, study is underway to consider impacts on sea birds and marine life from electromagnetic fields, construction, deployment, and servicing of undersea cable, etc. ::Oregon State University, via Newport News Times. See also ::Wave Power - Alternative Energy Available Today
Update: An extensive plumbing the depths of TH's packed-to-the-gunwales sea chest neglected to fish out that Lloyd had previously paddled out and caught this wave.
Thank you for this post. I don't know where else I would have read / heard about this!
that is an awesome concept that I definitely like to see in the near future
Imagine if the world's oceans where planted with all these on a huge scale!
"Unlike many of the other wave energy sources we’ve covered before, these work on a very different principle. In very basic terms a permanent neodymium-iron-born magnet is forced back and through an electric coil by the modulation of waves."
Actually, this conversion approach was developed 1978 - 1982, by Ocean Wave Energy Company, with a series of truss-like module arrays.