Perhaps someday – if, thirty or fifty years from now, wave energy converters and tidal stream generators become commonplace – it will be a largely forgotten blip in the sector’s long evolution from notion to reality. But in the here and now, marine energy is suffering. The latest sign: The European Marine Energy Centre in… Keep reading →
The renewable energy sector is dynamic, with advancing technology and evolving policy. As 2015 beckons, here are some of the key questions that Portland, Oregon-based contributor Pete Danko will be asking as about U.S. renewables. 1) Is The PTC Winding Down or Dead? The wind industry won a small victory just before Congress went home,… Keep reading →
Pelamis, long a leading player in the wave energy industry, has gone “into administration,” akin to Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The fall of the Scottish company, announced on Friday, was a blow to Scotland and a sign of the tremendous challenges wave developers face – but it might also signal a necessary winnowing of the incipient… Keep reading →
The tides are an enormous and consistent renewable energy resource, but taking advantage of them has proven frustrating. Newfangled minimal-impact in-stream devices have been slow to demonstrate their commercial viability; earlier “barrage” projects – dams on estuaries, essentially – have delivered energy as promised, but at the cost of degraded ecosystems. Now a potential solution… Keep reading →
In case you missed it, the United Nations held its Climate Summit at the New York headquarters yesterday where world leaders discussed carbon emissions reduction commitments, building momentum leading up to major international climate meetings in Peru later this year and France next year. “Experts say that in the coming months, the clearest indication of… Keep reading →
A U.S.-backed effort in Florida to explore the energy-producing potential of ocean currents has reeled in a private player – the Swedish startup Minesto, which uses a winged, turbine-tipped device that gathers energy by darting around underwater, kite-like, in a figure-eight pattern. Is there any real hope for it? There might be – but it… Keep reading →
Industry leaders gathered last week at the Global Marine Renewable Energy Conference in Seattle, mindful that wave and tidal are clean energy’s infants, on the cusp of toddlerhood, struggling to get up on their feet, while older siblings wind and solar sprint to new records. Nobody has lost faith that the vast energy of the… Keep reading →
Tidal energy and telecoms are proving testy neighbors in the Pacific Northwest.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) is trying to broker a peace between Snohomish Public Utility District, which wants to install the first tidal energy turbines on the West Coast, and PC Landing, which operates a major telecommunication cable between Washington State and Japan. Keep reading →
The beta version of the TidGen turbine on its way to installation in Cobscook Bay
Electricity generated with the force of ocean tides will be sold under long-term contracts for the first time in the United States later this year. Keep reading →
