Joanie February 14th, 2008
OCEANS EYED AS NEW ENERGY SOURCE
By Brian Skoloff
Associated Press
February 14, 2008
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8UQ9R5O0&show_article=1
DANIA BEACH, FLORIDA - Just 15 miles off Florida’s coast, the world’s most
powerful sustained ocean current — the mighty Gulf Stream — rushes by at
nearly 8.5 billion gallons per second. And it never stops.
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.”
…………..
RELATED LINKS:
Electric Power Research Institute:
http://www.epri.com
Finavera Renewables:
http://www.finavera.com
Federal Energy Regulatory Commission:
http://www.ferc.gov
Center of Excellence in Ocean Energy Technology:
http://coet.fau.edu
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Published by David Sunfellow
NewHeavenNewEarth (NHNE)
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