Antinuclear

Wave power could have a very big future in Australia

 The fact that around 80 percent of Australia’s population live in coastal areas , suggests that wave power will play a very significant part in the country’s energy future.

In Australia, oceans could supply 10 percent power Smart Planet, By Lieu Thi Pham | August 8, 2012, MELBOURNE — A new study by the CSIRO  (the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization), revealed that Australia’s oceans could supply 10 percent of the country’s electricity by 2050. This is the equivalent of powering a city the size of Melbourne, which has a population of around four million.

The Australian science agency study investigated the potential of harnessing the energy of the oceans — from waves , tides, currents and thermal energy — to power the country’s electricity from 2015 to 2050.

Their report, Ocean Renewable Energy: 2015-2050 , showed that there are tremendous energy resources in Australia’s southern oceans, in particular near the west coast of Tasmania, the southern ocean in Victoria, and the south-west ocean of Western Australia.

This is the first time in Australia that ocean-based renewable energy has been assessed from resource to market development. Dr Susan Wijffels, a spokesperson for the CSIRO , said that the findings showed that wave power could be integral to Australia’s renewable energy plan.

“The idea [of ocean power] has been around for a very long time,” Dr Wijffels said. “It’s getting attention now because some countries are currently looking at how viable some of these technologies are. I suspect it has to do with the policy setting in an energy market.”

There are at least 200 wave energy converter (WEC) devices that extract the energy from either the surface motion of the waves or the pressure fluctuations below the surface. The range of this energy capture varies between devices and to differing degree of success. Some companies  are currently conducting pilot tests and commercial demonstrations.

There are three main classes of WEC devices  that can be loaded in various depths: Point absorber (a float that is free to follow the movement of the wave and gather wave energy from any direction); linear attenuator (a float aligned in the direction of the wave); and terminator (a device that faces the wave directly to collect the energy).

The fact that around 80 percent of Australia’s population live in coastal areas , suggests that wave power will play a very significant part in the country’s energy future.

Dr Wijffels claims that wave power holds many key advantages over solar and wind power, including its consistency (waves are generated both day and night), and predictability as an energy resource….. http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/global-observer/in-australia-oceans-could-supply-10-percent-power/6680

August 31, 2012 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, energy