In the waters off the coast of Hawaii, a tall buoy bobs and sways in the water, using the rise and fall of the waves to generate electricity.
The current travels through an undersea cable for a mile to a military base, where it is fed into Oahu's power grid—the first wave-produced electricity to go online in the U.S.
By some estimates, the ocean's endless motion packs enough power to meet a quarter of America's energy needs and dramatically reduce the nation's reliance on oil, gas and coal. But wave energy technology lags well behind wind and solar power, with important technical hurdles still to be overcome.
To that end, the Navy has established a test site in Hawaii, with hopes the technology can someday be used to produce clean, renewable power for offshore fueling stations for the fleet and provide electricity to coastal communities in fuel-starved places around the world.
(Score: 1) by Francis on Tuesday September 20 2016, @04:23AM
The downside is that you're taking energy out of the water and removing a beach from certain uses.
But, depending upon how it's deployed in the future, removing energy from the ocean might not be the worst thing in the world. We don't want the oceans to increase in temperature because that throws off the entire set of marine ecosystems.