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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: 3, Interesting) by Absolutely.Geek on Wednesday September 21 2016, @12:59AM
The "Azure" was developed by Callaghan Innovations in New Zealand and built by Energy Hydraulics Limited; they have a second version of the machine 2 minutes drive from my house (in New Plymouth, NZ). Northwest has the rights to the global patent; mainly thanks to the NZ government being incompetent.
The Hawaii deployment is the second for this particular device; the first deployment was in Oregon which last I checked is in the US and was in 2014. Before that a smaller test version was deployed in NZ waters to test the concept.
I am fairly familiar with this device; my partner worked on the control system for it; I know a few of the scientists from Callaghan.
It is a fairly cool design; it has already broken plenty of records for power generation and longevity in the ocean.
Don't trust the police or the government - Shihad: My mind's sedate.