Wave power put to the test in Monterey Bay
Dec 9 - McClatchy-Tribune Regional News - Kurtis Alexander Santa Cruz
Sentinel, Calif.
The 60-foot Velocity motored out of Santa Cruz harbor Monday afternoon under
mostly sunny skies. On deck was an apprehensive crew -- scientists with
research group SRI International of Menlo Park, observers from the
Department of Energy and financiers with the Tokyo-based Hyper Drive Corp.
As the boat began to bob up and down after clearing the breakwater, and the
stomachs of those with weaker constitutions began to churn, the day's
mission became all the more clear: to see the wave motion go to work making
electricity.
The 62-year-old SRI International, which counts the invention of the
computer mouse among its discoveries, was at sea to test its new
wave-powered generator, a floating device that awaited the Velocity about a
mile offshore and holds the promise, its inventors said, of bringing energy
to land.
"There's only so much you can do in the lab. At some point, you have to put
it out in the water," said Philip Von Guggenberg, the group's business
director.
The ocean has become the latest frontier for a power industry hungry for
alternatives.
Waves, say energy experts, have many advantages. They're constant and
reliable, close to the highly populated coasts where power needs are
greatest, and, unlike other sources of electricity such as solar, can be
harnessed with very basic technology.
Two countries, Portugal and Scotland, have begun to commercialize wave power
and several others are working
to catch up, including the United States, where several projects are in the
pipeline.
"It's still a very open market," said Carolyn Elefant with the Ocean
Renewable Energy Coalition, the young industry's even younger trade group.
"Even companies that are on the leading edge now and currently feeding power
to the grid, we don't know in 10 or 15 years if they're going to be the
winners in this race."
For researchers at SRI International, the strategy in a marketplace with no
defined standard is to go simple.
The group's wave generator is designed to let waves move a bendable slab of
rubber-like material and, by doing so, act much like a turbine and produce
electricity. Today, it might just be a few watts, tomorrow, a small city.
"We like to say we can make electricity with something as simple as a rubber
band," said Roy Kornbluh, principal research engineer for SRI International.
The technology, he adds, avoids the more costly and error-prone wave systems
that rely on pumps to push air, water or oil to generate power.
And so, amid light winds on the Monterey Bay and relatively calm surf, the
Velocity pulled up to the much anticipated wave machine. Kornbluh and others
aboard set their sights seaward.
On a roughly 10-foot-tall buoy, two levers moved with the rise and fall of
the ocean, pushing accordian-looking rubbery material up and down through
plastic columns.
"It's responding to the choppy waves and the longer waves," Kornbluh said.
In other words, success. At least for now.
Mikio Waki, chief technology officer of Hyper Drive, says the technology,
which produced a relatively scant 20 joules per second -- enough to power a
small lightbulb -- during its four-day debut, is at least five years away
from being scaled up and commercially viable. And how the power will be
transmitted, either sending electricity through underground cables or
producing hydrogen from the generator that would run through a pipe, is yet
to be determined.
But in an industry that energy experts say could supply 6.5 percent of the
nation's total energy needs, there is still time to figure things out.
"The best way to extract the resource is still unclear," said Alejandro
Moreno, a manager of water programs for the Department of Energy, who joined
the crew of the Velocity to preview the nascent system. "But any technology
that can minimize moving parts and components that might break will be at an
advantage."
Contact Kurtis Alexander at 706-3267 or
kalexander@santacruzsentinel.com.
Copyright © 2008The
McClatchy Company |