Nov 30 2010
According to an industry specialist, the earth’s Ocean Tides could provide 10% of the American electricity requirements. Supporters of renewables contend that tidal energy is only a part of the future and hence a few years away. But they feel hydrokinetic systems, such as tides free flowing rivers and ocean waves could provide a lot more of electricity than what is now generated by hydro-electric projects.
As per a report released by Milton Financials in October, New Jersey-based Ocean Power Technologies, an alternative energy firm, connected a test buoy in the swells of the third biggest island in Hawaii to a power grid servicing a US Marine Base, located on the island, leading to the utilization of wave energy in US waters for the very first time. According to Robert Lurie, Ocean Power’s Vice President, with this initiative, the company has shown decisively that the technology works and that it could endure the harsh ocean conditions and produce high quality power for the grid.
Ocean Power has plans of deploying a bigger buoy for power generation in the waves off Oregon shore in the Pacific Northwest region in 2011. Lurie disclosed that the company eventually has a goal to construct multi-buoy wave farms, which have the capacity of generating adequate energy to power 50,000 households. At present, several tidal power projects and research is being carried out in Alaska, Washington, Hawaii, California, Florida, Maine, and Oregon and along the East River in the New York City and the Mississippi River.
According to a source in the US Department of Energy, these were all coastal resources and that plenty of people lived along the coasts. Provision of more than half of the power requirements for either Alaska or New York or Hawaii was very significant. Milton Financials is an independent broker committed to provide investment advice and market insights for private, institutional and corporate clients.
Source: http://www.miltonfinancials.com