Electricity from the Ocean?

A floating station uses wave motion to drive a piston that pumps water through an exhaust pipe. That water is collected and then passed through standard turbines to make electricity when needed, returning the water to its source.




The company last week said that Texas A&M University at Galveston's Marine Engineering Technology Department had evaluated a demonstration machine in the Gulf of Mexico. The university found that the Seadog Pump was able to convert 22 percent of ocean wave energy into usable energy.


Originally from cnet.com

Now the real question we have to ask is how will a farm of these effect wildlife and the ocean currents. We already have a very fragile environment (look to droughts in the west and melting ice caps). We need to make sure our alternative energy sources will not just make other situations worse for us. Everyone has hyped up ethanol as a great fuel alternative but that has had the side effect of driving up the cost of corn and thus the prices of many other foods that depend on cheap corn.

Alternative fuel is exciting and definitely a direction we need to head but we need to not rush into the hot new fuel ideas without considering the true costs. We need to be careful to not rob Peter to pay Paul
- posted by Doug @ 10:51:00 AM