Jun 7 - Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News - David Schoetz Cape Cod Times, Hyannis, Mass.

Vineyard Sound is one of eight sites across the country that a Washington, D.C., company wants to reserve as a possible future home for a tidal energy project.

Oceana Energy Co. this spring submitted applications for preliminary permits to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on seven tidal energy proposals, including the Cape and Islands Tidal Energy Hydroelectric Project.

The company already has received a preliminary permit for a tidal energy project in San Francisco Bay.

"We have organized to investigate the waters around the coastline of the United States to try to determine where the best collectable ocean energy exists," Daniel Power, the president of Oceana, said in an interview yesterday.

The eight Oceana proposals are the only applications for large-scale tidal energy projects currently before the federal commission, according to Federal Energy Regulatory Commission spokeswoman Barbara Connors. A preliminary permit, Connors said, would act as "a place holder" for Oceana.

"They get a preliminary permit and they're not competing with other people at that point," Connors said.

Oceana filed seven of its applications this spring as state and federal regulators craft ocean management policy for offshore renewable energy projects.

The application for the Cape proposal was filed by the Massachusetts Tidal Energy Co., an Oceana subsidiary. The Vineyard Sound proposal is currently within a 60-day comment period, during which any competing application for the same site could be filed.

If Oceana receives a preliminary permit for the Vineyard Sound project, the company earns the right to study and possibly develop the site for three years.

TRC Environmental Corp., a Lowell-based consulting company, is acting as Oceana's agent in the permitting process for the proposed tidal energy projects.

According to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission application for the Vineyard Sound proposal, the project would include between 50 and 150 so-called tidal in-stream energy conversion devices. Tidal energy technology is still evolving, but the devices Oceana has proposed would likely have propeller blades about 35 feet in diameter submerged in water up to 75 feet deep, according to the company's permit application.

As ocean currents pass through the propellers, each device would generate between 500 kilowatts and 2 megawatts of electricity, about enough capacity to power 750 homes apiece, according to the application.

The proposed Vineyard Sound site would begin at the southwest end of Naushon Island and extend northeast on either side of Lucas Shoal and Middle Ground.

The electricity generated would connect to a transmission cable linking Falmouth and Martha's Vineyard.

If Oceana receives a preliminary permit, the company expects to spend between $1 million and $4 million researching the site's viability. Like any project of this size and environmental sensitivity, Oceana would need to obtain several permits before construction could begin.

In April, the California-based Electric Power Research Institute, with funding from the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative, released a study on five possible sites for a tidal energy project off the Bay State coast.

Roger Bedard, a co-author of the study, said the Muskeget Channel, which runs between Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket Islands, is the best option of the five they considered, a list that included Vineyard Sound. According to Bedard, the Vineyard Sound site does not have nearly the power density needed to make a large-scale tidal energy project cost effective.

After two years of searching the United States and Canada for the best tidal energy sites, Bedard said he is skeptical about Massachusetts Tidal Energy Co. "I've never heard of these guys," Bedard said, adding that the company's primary goal may be placing a stake on Vineyard Sound.

"Any Joe Blow can apply for a preliminary permit," he said.

But Power, the Oceana president, defended the company's shotgun siting approach.

The company's investors, he said, include several founding members of the Washington-based Climate Institute, an organization that has fought for climate change policy for nearly 20 years. With the nation's dependency on fossil fuels, the potential for tidal energy in the U.S. is huge, Power said.

"This could be a major part of solving the national energy crisis," he said.

"I'm not talking a silver bullet... but we can begin to solve the problems."

Power flatly denied his company is seeking an unfair advantage over potential competitors.

"If we're going to spend the money to get this garden growing correctly, we want to be able to plant our seeds," he said.