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Making waves
story Jessica McElfresh | photo courtesy of WESRF
Two years ago, the Navy began testing buoys in the ocean as a way to generate energy. Although the concept is still in its infancy, the Oregon coast is slated to be the first place in the nation to install wave parks, and implementation is moving quickly. In the next five years, Oregon may become the nation’s leader in wave energy. Here’s a look at wave energy and what it means to Oregonians.
The Basics
In Oregon, wave energy technology primarily consists of buoys that harness energy and send electricity inland. It’s considered an alternative energy one hundred times more powerful than solar energy. “We need a lot of energy to power the world, but it only takes a small fraction of the total available energy in the ocean to do that. Now it has been estimated by researchers in Europe that if we could take 0.2 percent of all the energy in the ocean, that would do the job,” said Allan Wallace, the late researcher at Oregon State University whose innovative research and ideas helped kick off the wave energy program at OSU in 2003.
Currently, there are wave energy projects (some in the works) in
Portugal, Ireland, England, and the United States. Reedsport, Oregon was chosen as the optimal location in the nation for developing a wave energy test site by the Electrical Power Research Institute in 2004. Reedsport is on course to have buoys in the water by 2009 and a full, 0.25 square mile wave park in five years. The Reedsport location will produce fifty to one hundred megawatts of energy.
Who’s involved
The developers: At OSU, a major site of wave energy development and testing, researcher Ted Brekken and his colleagues are optimistic about the power of wave energy. Brekken is eagerly working to develop the necessary technology to make it happen.
The private companies: The companies competing to bring wave technology into the marketplace include Ocean Power Technology and Finavera. Groups like these will help to support development, installation, and maintenance costs of the buoys. They also stand to lose the most money if the technology fails.
The fishermen/crabbers: The push to develop marine reserves is slowly elbowing fishermen out of their former territories. Wave parks and the close proximity of buoys to the shore — within three miles at Reedsport — limit fishermen and crabbers’ access to the coast.
The state and federal agencies: The abundance of groups filing licenses to develop wave energy over hundreds of miles of coastline prompted Governor Ted Kulongoski to allow only five to seven full-scale wave parks.