Energy produced using the movement of water—hydroelectric energy—is one of the most efficient ways to create electricity. The problems with hydroelectric energy come from its non-energy-related side effects, like flooding people out of their homes and creating reservoirs full of organic plant and animal matter that decays underwater and produces mercury. But what if we were to build gently floating buoys that harness the power of the ocean’s waves without interfering with them at all? Well, one company has launched their test converter, the AquaBuOY, off the coast of Oregon, and the U.K. government has already approved its first wave farm, off the coast of Cornwall.
The two designs differ greatly. The British version, developed in Edinburgh, looks like a floating snake and faces into oncoming waves. Specially developed joints along its body move with the motion of the waves, generating an uneven stream of power which is smoothed out and sent back to shore via an underwater cable. The American version, seen in the video, sits higher in the water like a conventional buoy, and uses the same mooring and anchoring technologies as navigational buoys do. Power is generated in an open-ended, vertical tube, using the vertical component of the wave energy, and again, sent back to shore through a submarine cable.
The beauty of these wave converters is that they can be put together into large arrays which will interfere very little with the landscape or with human beings (as long as they’re not in the way of shipping routes), and which can produce up to hundreds of megawatts of power—enough to supply the dense populations of today’s large cities.
