Harnessing the Ocean's Power
Capturing the power of ocean waves could become an important part of the world's renewable energy portfolio. But capturing that clean energy is not just the vision of 21st century scientists. "There are patents going back to 1799," says Annette von Jouanne, professor of electrical engineering and computer science at Oregon State University, and a world leader in wave energy research. Interest and support of this technology has not been consistent. There was enthusiasm after the 1970s oil embargo, but it dropped when oil prices stabilized.
Transcript
00:00:12 what we're looking at here is the deployment of our 11th wave energy buoy power from clean and constant ocean waves could help solve The World's energy problems but it hasn't always been easy to generate support for this renewable source in 199 8 when I was writing these white papers and proposals people were saying you know she's crazy we're not going to be able to harness uh
00:00:38 energy from the ocean it's just too harsh of an environment before this successful field test off the Oregon coast contactors and circuit breakers electrical engineer Annette Von Jaan experimented with many Technologies this is a linear to Rotary system and these were two of those top five that we built at the the 200 watt level with support from the National
00:01:03 Science Foundation bonjan developed many wave energy devices this design has few moving Parts you have this magnet assembly heaving up and down in the waves creating this changing magnetic field and the direct conversion of that linear heaving motion of the wave into electrical energy in the lab they can mimic the harsh ocean environment
00:01:31 they're also designing systems to minimize harm to marine mammals we do have off the Oregon coast about 20,000 whales that migrate so we have experts who are also looking at Acoustic avoidance systems that are encouraging the whales to go around these wave installations experts say wave energy might one day supply up to 6% of us
00:01:59 energy needs wave power is available 80 to 90% of the time twice that of wind or solar fortunately we are in a climate that people understand the importance of renewable energy Technologies so clean ocean Energy may be the wave of the future for science Nation I'm Miles O'Brien