Wave Power set for Oregon Coast
Two major projects off the Oregon Coast are planned to start generating electricity from the power of waves. Wave generators utilize the constant motion of waves and currents to power a generator that produces electricity. This is exciting news to hear that a new form of clean and renewable energy will soon hit the energy market. The company's PowerBuoy's have a piston-like structure inside that moves as the buoy bobs with the rise and fall of the waves.
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New Jersey based company, Ocean Power Technologies (Nasdaq: OPTT), recently signed a deal to demonstrate wave power generation on the Oregon Coast. They are to spend $500,000 to install their ocean powered demo Buoy system. These systems in particular will be located near Reedsport, Oregon and most of the buoy will be submerged into the water at depths between 100ft to 150ft. The current deal is for a 150 kilowatt PowerBuoy, with plans to initially generate a total of 2 MW approximately 2 1/2 miles off the coast. Ocean Power said Pacific Northwest Generating Cooperative has an option to buy into or purchase power from the planned future upgrade to 50 MW at the wave power park.
Australia based Oceanlinx Limited is planning a much larger construction project off the coast of Florence, Oregon. These guys want to build a system of buoys that are platform big. They will build something that looks similar to oil platforms: three hundred thirty tons big, and 23ft above sea level. The wave-energy generators that Oceanlinx is proposing will be in an area that starts a half-mile offshore and goes three miles out, extending six miles north and south. There will be 10 four-legged structures that measure 115 feet by 49 feet, not counting the cables and anchors that will keep them bound to the underwater sand. With those anchors, the footprint is 107,584 squa
re feet.
If all goes well with permitting, Oceanlinx expects to file its application for a license in three years and deploy its first wave energy units thereafter.
All of these projects could generate several thousand jobs for the state of Oregon which has the potential to boost the state economy. I personally believe in the wave power and would like to see these projects start. From an environmental standpoint, there are some issues with the footprint these machines may affect as far as the eco-system goes, however, as long as careful placement and studies are done to prevent the worst effects are conducted then I am sure that projects like these can proceed forward with minimal impact.
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7 COMMENTS, ADD YOURS HERE:
Are the maintenance cost high for this type of system?
I am not sure if the costs for maintaining these devices is high or low, my best guess would be that it would be somewhat equivalent to the maintenance necessary to keep up with wind generators.
It sounds like a wonderful Idea at first glance. Oh yeah so didn't biofuel, and alot of others, only to find out years down the road big money has there foot well planted and everybody wonders what went wrong. I wonder how much of the enviroment's going to get tore up just implementing these grand devices, just to test them, to see if they can make even more money by installing more devices, taking up sq. miles of the ocean floor. Oh and all in the meanwhile closing even more area to commercial fishermen that are being regulated and watched like a hawk now. Yeah let's bring in another big business to tear up an entire ecosystem that's on a comeback from an already devastating past. Do we really think this is a good answer?
Still much, much better than plastic waste, oil and other vast chemical pollution of the oceans.
And it is not producing CO2 to cook us up for good...
I have often sat here in Bandon, OR and watched the waves and the wind blow and said, "why doesn't someone harness this energy and use it."
We have more water on this planet than dry land, yet no one has turned this natural resource into usable energy. We have constant wind in Bandon and miles of shoreline, let's use it instead of being forced into selling our first born paying the price for outdated methods. These are two natural resources that can wipe out a city, so surely, it could produce the energy to be stored and used.
However, unlike biofuel (which taxes our farming industry as well as costs us money to refine) it is a cost-effective renewable source, and we don't have to worry about a wave shortage.
As I passed by the Ashland Food Co-op in Ashland, Oregon on my way to the Post Office, a young and energetic Greenpeace standing on the sidewalk approached me and asked, “Would you like to save the Polar Bear?”
Unable to resists such direct question about my concern for the environment, I stopped to dialogue with the volunteer about Polar Bear and several other environmental issues. I found her to be a well informed and dedicated volunteer. We didn’t see eye-to-eye on every issue, but the conversation was cordial. She did ask if I want support Greenpeace by becoming a member, but when I declined to join, she was pushy or insistent. During the interaction she mentioned that they had run into a problem standing in front of the Ashland Food Co-op and soliciting memberships. In fact she indicated that someone from the Ashland Food Co-op told them they could not stand on the sidewalk out in front of the Ashland Food Co-op and if they continued to they would contact the police.
I was a bit amazed, I assumed an institution like the Ashland Food Co-op would support the efforts of an organization like Greenpeace. The Greenpeace volunteer was a taken back by their response as well.
In spite of the objections of the Ashland Food Co-op, they remained there and continued to speak with the people coming and going about the Polar Bear and other environmental issue. Apparently Greenpeace had acquired a state wide permit to canvas for membership, and as long where not engaging in this activity on Ashland Food Co-op property and remain on the public sidewalk, there was nothing the Ashland, Oregon police or the Ashland Food Co-op could do to remove them.
I had things to do and places to go, but this chance encounter stuck with me through the rest of the day. Know that there a two side of every store, I call the Ashland Food Co-op when I got home in late afternoon. I spoke with the floor manager, since the manager had gone home for the night. She said that they had received complaints from there cliental about the aggressive way that they where approached by the Greenpeace people out in front of their business. That is why they where asked to leave and the Ashland Food Co-op had consider call the police on them.
Greenpeace can be aggressive in their efforts to save the environment, that they are famous for confronting, for confronting those logging old-growth timber, confronting those that govern us about reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and confronting corporations and government whose practices are destroying the planet we live on. These are the people who where willing to put the selves between the whaling ship and the whales, risk life and life in the process.
The Ashland Food Co-op is a place of business and I can only assume from the floor managers comments, that the last thing that their customers want is someone bothering them on their way into the their co-op. From the perspective of the Ashland Food Co-op this is not the way to work for the environment and way Greenpeace approached their customers could not be tolerated.
I am only left to wonder if the Ashland Food Co-op and Greenpeace are unable to find a way to get resolve such differences when they arise, how can one expect the rest of the planet to muster the kind of co-operation that is require to hopefully resolve the environmental, political and economic problems our world now faces.
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