Wave Hub off Cornwall Recieves Funding
by Matthew Sparkes, London, UK on 04.26.07
7,500 UK homes could soon be powered by clean wave energy, thanks to a £21.5 million government grant. The project, 10 miles off the Cornish coast, will cost a total of £28 million, and now has sufficient funds to go ahead. Planning permission still needs to be sought, but hopefully this offshore project should be less of a problem than recent attempts by UK politicians to install green energy sources in their homes.
The project will include a hub into which various generation devices could be plugged. According to Stephen Peacock, who works for the RDA who provided the grant, "Wave Hub has the potential to make an enormous contribution to tackling climate change and we believe it could transform the wave technology industry." :: The Guardian
You don't have to search far for treasure when it will be found soon just 10 miles off the Cornish coast in the form of Pelamis wave generators. There will be money to be pumped from the ocean swells and the pirates of old have been replaced by energy productive buoys of the sea.
I am looking forward to the day when we here in Hawaii can have this type of wave farm as well. Presently about 90% of our electricity is produced from burning oil and we could use a more sustainable as well as economic and non-polluting way of generating electric power for our island residents and numerous visitors.
At this time, wave power tends to be more costly than wind produced Kwh's because it is a new and technology. However, once it is accepted as a viable industrial way of producing power and with the manufacturing of many more units, the Kwh cost should become highly competitive. Also, this form of energy tends to produce a steady, rather than an intermittant source of power and would not require energy storage facilities.
Wave power is a promising technology, sure to grow after a few years into a future energy producing industry that people can rely upon for sustainable, clean, economic and reliable power.
adrianakau@aol.com
Surfers have been worried that using wave power would detract from their own use of waves. Incredibly, this has been researched as part of the planning process for Wave Hub, the ressearch apparently revealing that a maximum of only 5% of the breakers' energy content would be extracted (not the 11% that people feared). Proper job!