Powerful Oceans Slowly Tamed for Energy

September 24, 2006 – Vol. 11 No. 26

POWERFUL OCEANS SLOWLY TAMED FOR ENERGY.

The oceans cover two thirds of our small planet. They give us food, much of our weather, and store carbon dioxide. We use them to transport goods and use them for recreation and sport. Yet we rarely use them for their obvious assets: their energy and power, their endlessly flowing currents and sometimes punishing waves.

Slowly, that may be changing. The ocean energy business is in its infancy, but new projects keep popping up.

Finavera Renewables is committed to building a phased-in 20-megawatt wave energy powerplant for waters off the coast off the Republic of South Africa. The $40 million project would be built over the next five years. Power from the project would be used on South Africa’s grid.

Finavera Renewables includes the former AquaEnergy Group which developed the AquaBuOY which uses internal hydraulics to harness the up and down motion of ocean waves. Power from the devices is sent by cable to the shore and the devices are clustered to create a single, unified ocean power plant.

Anchored to the ocean bottom the devices are engineered to withstand the punishment of the oceans. Unlike wind turbines the devices are barely visible from shore. (This near-invisibility would make ocean front property owners happy.)

Finavera made the commitment to the Clinton Global Initiative which aims to become a nonpartisan catalyst for action to bring together business leaders and heads of state and nonprofit organizations to implement solutions to pressing problems throughout the globe, including global warming.

The company is also planning a much larger 100-megawatt wave energy project for waters off Portugal. The Figuera da Foz powerplant will have 488, 250-kilowatt AquaBuOY wave energy generators anchored three nautical miles from shore.

Visit Finavera Renewables at http://www.finavera.com/ and the Clinton Global Initiative at http://www.clintonglobalinitiative.org/ .