Michele Kearney's Nuclear Wire: Tidal Power: The Next Wave? By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL

Friday, October 22, 2010

Tidal Power: The Next Wave? By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL

Over the next few years, we can expect to see huge advances in our ability to harness power from the ocean’s waves and tides, a new report from IHS Emerging Energy Research, a Cambridge, Mass., consulting firm, predicts.

Getty Images A tidal energy turbine developed by Atlantis Resources.

Until recently, that sector has had limited popularity and mixed success, even as the number of installations generating power from other renewable resources like the wind, sun and biomass has grown rapidly.
“The global ocean energy sector is at a turning point,” the company’s report says. More than 45 wave and tidal prototypes are expected to be ocean-tested in 2010 and 2011. Only nine were tested in 2009.
More important, perhaps, while previous test projects tended to be operated by small, boutique firms, the giants of hydropower, which have decades of experience drawing power from rivers, are now getting into the ocean business. More at:

http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/20/tidal-power-the-next-wave/?partner=rss&emc=rss