Looking to the ocean for energy
DANIA BEACH, Fla. (AP) - February 14, 2008 To scientists, it represents a tantalizing possibility: a new,
plentiful and uninterrupted source of clean energy.
Florida Atlantic University researchers say the current could
someday be used to drive thousands of underwater turbines, produce
as much energy as perhaps 10 nuclear plants and supply one-third of
Florida's electricity. A small test turbine is expected to be
installed within months.
"We can produce power 24/7," said Frederick Driscoll, director
of the university's Center of Excellence in Ocean Energy
Technology. Using a $5 million research grant from the state, the
university is working to develop the technology in hopes that big
energy and engineering companies will eventually build huge
underwater arrays of turbines.
From Oregon to Maine, Europe to Australia and beyond,
researchers are looking to the sea - currents, tides and waves -
for its infinite energy. So far, there are no commercial-scale
projects in the U.S. delivering electricity to the grid.
Because the technology is still taking shape, it is too soon to
say how much it might cost. But researchers hope to make it as
cost-effective as fossil fuels. While the initial investment may be
higher, the currents that drive the machinery are free.
There are still many unknowns and risks. One fear is the
"Cuisinart effect": The spinning underwater blades could chop up
fish and other creatures.
Researchers said the underwater turbines would pose little risk
to passing ships. The equipment would be moored to the ocean floor,
with the tops of the blades spinning 30 to 40 feet below the
surface, because that's where the Gulf Stream flows fastest. But
standard navigation equipment on ocean vessels could easily guide
them around the turbine fields if their hulls reached that deep,
researchers said.
And unlike offshore wind turbines, which have run into
opposition from environmentalists worried that the technology would
spoil the ocean view, the machinery would be invisible from the
surface, with only a few buoys marking the fields.
David White of the Ocean Conservancy said much of the technology
is largely untested in the outdoors, so it is too soon to say what
the environmental effects might be.
"We understand that there are environmental trade-offs, and we
need to start looking to alternative energy and everything should
be on the table," he said. "But what are the environmental
consequences? We just don't know that yet."
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has issued 47
preliminary permits for ocean, wave and tidal energy projects, said
spokeswoman Celeste Miller. Most such permits grant rights just to
study an area's energy-producing potential, not to build anything.
The field has been dealt some setbacks. An ocean test last year
ended in disaster when its $2 million buoy off Oregon's coast sank
to the sea floor. Similarly, a small test project using turbines
powered by tidal currents in New York City's East River ran into
trouble last year after turbine blades broke.
The Gulf Stream is about 30 miles wide and shifts only slightly
in its course, passing closer to Florida than to any other major
land mass. "It's the best location in the world to harness ocean
current power," Driscoll said.
Researchers on the West Coast, where the currents are not as
powerful, are looking instead to waves to generate power.
Canada-based Finavera Renewables has received a FERC license to
test a wave energy project in Washington state. It will eventually
include four buoys in a bay and generate enough power for up to 700
homes. The 35-ton buoys rise above the water about 6 feet and
extend some 60 feet down. Inside each buoy, a piston rises and
falls with the waves.
The company hopes later to be the first in the U.S. to operate a
commercial-scale "wave farm," situated off Northern California.
The project with Pacific Gas and Electric calls for Finavera to
produce enough electricity to power up to 600 homes by 2012.
Finavera eventually wants to supply 30,000 households.
Roger Bedard of the Electric Power Research Institute said an
analysis by his organization found that wave- and tide-generated
energy could supply only about 6.5 percent of today's electricity
needs.
Finavera spokesman Myke Clark acknowledged that wave energy is
"definitely not the only answer" to the nation's power needs and
is never going to be as cheap as coal. But it could be "part of
the energy mix," and could be used to great advantage off the
coasts of Third World countries, where entire towns have no
connection to electrical grids, he said.
Nick Furman, executive director of the Oregon Dungeness Crab
Commission, said he fears the wave technology could crowd out his
industry, which last year brought in 50 million pounds of crab and
contributed $150 million to the state's economy.
"We've got a limited amount of flat sandy bottom on the Oregon
Coast where we can put out pots and where we can fish, and the wave
energy folks are telling us they need the same flat, sandy
bottom," Furman said.
"It's not the 10-buoy wave park that has the industry
concerned. It's that if it's successful, then that park turns into
a 200- or 400-buoy park and it just keeps growing."
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On the Net:
Electric Power Research Institute: www.epri.com
Finavera Renewables: www.finavera.com
Federal Energy Regulatory Commission: www.ferc.gov
Center of Excellence in Ocean Energy Technology:
http://coet.fau.edu