"We've become kind of a bulls-eye for world developers," says Ashby.
Courtesy Ocean Power Technology
Rendering of wave energy park
The wave energy sector has been slow to coalesce around one technology. Quite the opposite. Unconventional ideas are blooming like algae along America's Pacific Coast in a proliferation of creative electric engineering.
Ashby says community acceptance also needs some work yet.
Tom Banse
|
Tillamook, Oregon
26 November 2010
Photo: Courtesy of Principle Power, Inc.
Rendering of floating offshore wind farm
Tillamook Public Utility District manager Pat Ashby has seen even more far out ideas cross his desk.
Wisner was followed to the podium in Tillamook by a representative for Seattle, Washington-based. Kevin Bannister described his company's plans for floating wind farms offshore of Oregon and Portugal.
Harnessing the power of waves
"It's designed in such a way that it has open chambers on the wave facing side," Thornton explains. "When the waves crash or hit against this device, water fills these chambers and runs into the back where the turbine is. Basically it's very similar to a hydroelectric dam where water just flows through and drives a turbine."
VOA - T. Banse
Wave Energy AS program director Stephanie Thornton hopes to harness the power of the crashing waves near Barview, Oregon.
The steady, powerful pounding of the ocean surf at this time of year is a reminder why marine energy developers love the Pacific Northwest. Huge waves crash against the jetties at the mouth of Tillamook Bay on the Oregon Coast. Columns of spray shoot in the air.
U.S. and foreign governments are keen on the sector and are pumping in lots of funds to float more prototypes. But whether electricity can be generated in the ocean at affordable prices remains an open question
Winning people over
"What happens is a wave comes in from the ocean. It forces the top of the Oyster down onto some pistons," says Wisner. "Those pistons force that water into high pressure water line that goes ashore to a Pelton wheel, which is one of the oldest ways of generating electricity."
Yet another company diving into the competition is a Salem, Oregon based startup, . Its idea relies on wave pressure passing over air-filled pillows on the sea floor. The pulses compress air, which can then be used to spin an electric turbine.
"They're talking about a big area around them that would be closed to fishing," says Mobley. "We can't afford to have any more fishing ground taken from us."
"Once they figure out if it can work from a technical standpoint, then it's the business side of it," Thornton says. "The economics may be the key issue."
At the Port of Garibaldi, Oregon, Darren Mobley prepares his boat for winter crabbing. He's among the many fishermen and crabbers who worry about how harnessing ocean energy will impact them.
Aquamarine outreach coordinator Theresa Wisner recently described her firm's near-shore device to the Tillamook County Commission. Called the Oyster, it's a very large mechanical flap resting on the sea bottom.
Prototype ocean energy devices are generating electricity in Scottish, Hawaiian and Australian waters, but not here yet.
The Scottish firm, , is one of several other foreign companies scouting here.
The industry is in its infancy. It's a period of great experimentation, overflowing with creative technologies.
"The design came from the oil and gas industry. So, semi-submersible platforms like this one are not terribly new," says Bannister. "The integration with a wind turbine however is a new idea."
"The wave energy potential is very large here," says Stephanie Thornton, American program director for the . The Norwegian company proposes redesigning jetties and breakwaters like these to include electricity generators built inside.
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