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Electricity from the sea
Dreams of converting ocean energy into electricity move closer to commercial reality.
By Adrian G. Uribarri, Times Staff Writer
7:42 PM PST, March 10, 2007
The electricity comes from a power cable that runs to the mainland.
But it also comes from the ocean.
A few miles from the school, wave action compresses and decompresses air in a chamber. The moving air powers a turbine, which generates electricity.
"It is pleasant, on a choppy but sunny day, to sit beside the gray, concrete structure and listen to the rising and falling of the waves, driving air through the turbines like the breath of a great sea monster," Husthwaite said. "It seems insane to me to be investing in nuclear power stations and gas turbines when there are endless, free energy resources in the rivers, oceans and the wind."<snip>
PG&E joins a global list of organizations experimenting with harnessing ocean power. In less than three years, U.S. energy regulators have received nearly five dozen applications for water-related energy projects from South Florida to Washington state.
Islay's wave-power converter, the Limpet 500, has been operating since 2000. In Hawaii, the Navy has been churning up electrons with the help of a floating buoy. And in Portugal, engineers are installing snakelike tubes designed to convert the sea's motion into electricity.<snip>
The California Energy Commission estimates that the state's 1,100-mile coastline could generate seven to 17 megawatts a mile, enough power per mile to serve as many as 13,000 average homes. One wave-power company executive told a congressional committee last year that several hundred square miles off the California coast could supply the electrical needs of all of the homes in the state.<snip>
PG&E, a subsidiary of PG&E Corp., is asking regulators for the right to study wave-power projects at two Northern California sites. One, off Humboldt County, would be spread across 136 square miles. The second, off Mendocino County's coast, would be 68 square miles. The final locations, known as "wave farms," would be as close as half a mile from the coast or as far as 10 miles offshore.
The utility plans to spend $3 million studying the sites. The permits it is seeking from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission would prevent other entities from developing the areas for three years. To move from research to development, the utility would file for a license.<snip>
T
Islay's Limpet system may not fly in California because it's embedded in a cliff — a no-no with environmentalists. Portugal's slinky Pelamis isn't exactly eye candy, making it a possible weak spot with oceanfront property owners. And the PowerBuoy system, in use at a Navy base in Hawaii, has yet to supply significant amounts of power.<snip>
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