Our power demands are increasing and, with it, a desire to find renewable and long-lasting energy sources, be they solar, wind or nuclear. Among these options also sits wave power — given that Australia’s completely surrounded by, well, loads of waves, it would seem a decent idea to try and harness the energy they create.
What is wave power, exactly? There are many different approaches but, essentially, the idea is to capture the kinetic energy from wave motion. Tidal power, on the other hand, works by holding onto incoming tides and generating power as water is released.
CSIRO’s keen on Australia’s wave power potential. In a 2011 report, the organisation noted that the wave power between Geraldton, Tasmania and Tassie’s southern tip is around 1300TWh per year, enough to supply Australia’s energy requirements five times over, though the report mentions that 23TWh would be required by 2050 to provide just five per cent of the country’s “grid-based” needs. It estimates 100-200km (less than one per cent) of Australia’s coastline would be required to deliver this amount.
A Sydney Morning Herald article from yesterday tells us that Victoria’s been keen since at least 2009, having granted a company by the name of Ocean Power Technologies $66 million to develop a 19MW wave farm near Portland, Victoria, about 360km west of Melbourne. Initially, the farm will use ten of OPT’s “PowerBuoy” units to produce 1.5MW.
Unfortunately, SMH reports that no “physical” progress has yet been made, which may or may not have something to do with the project requiring an additional $130 million to shift into gear. OPT says it’s spent the last two years fine-tuning its technology and is still in the process of securing permits and funding.
Is Victoria on the right track investing in wave power, a technology arguably on the fringes of the renewable energy debate, or should we be putting more thought into gas and possibly nuclear options?
You know, while we wait for cold fusion to get off the ground.
[SMH]
John
Sunday, January 22, 2012 at 2:35 PMCold fussion will probably be a pipe dream for the next 50 years, there is another option that has been around almost as long as uranium fission and that’s thorium, which unlike uranium is naturally stable, meaning you don’t need active cooling systems to prevent a run away reaction causing a meltdown.
There was a thorium conference held in Canberra toward the end of November last year, both China and India are putting resources toward a full scale reactor.
You don’t need large amount of area for generating electricity either, nor even a large amount of thorium, and thorium technology may even scale down to the size that would fit on the back of a truck, reducing our need for very long spans of power lines.
Logan Booker
Sunday, January 22, 2012 at 2:48 PMCold fusion was a bit of a joke — I don’t think anyone considers it a serious option right now. :)
But I do agree about thorium, it has a lot of potential, being safer and more abundant than uranium. Uranium’s just had more time for technologies to mature and be tested in real world applications, which is why it’ll be around for a while yet.
John
Sunday, January 22, 2012 at 3:22 PMThe reason uranium is more mature/used is for the simple reason that the by-product of uranium fission is plutonium which was useful for making bombs, and thorium reaction doesn’t make stuff useful for making into bombs, it’s much more useful for making electricity however.
Nat
Sunday, January 22, 2012 at 8:01 PM+1 on Thorium for power generation.
It is way safer than Uranium and you can’t make bombs with it.
With China and India looking to build a full scale reactor, Australia would be stupid in the extreme to ignore it. Why? Because we have enough Thorium in the ground to last hundreds of years.
Jeff
Sunday, January 22, 2012 at 5:12 PMWell like they say, “Fusion is the power source of the future and always will be” but you can’t really believe that cold fusion is not going to be here before next year when in fact you can buy it now! I wonder how they keep this information from you?
eckythump
Sunday, January 22, 2012 at 2:53 PM+1 good point, I think Thorium must have been swept under the mat but for the life of me I can’t understand why. Once again red tape and politics!
TSH
Monday, January 23, 2012 at 10:50 AMHaving broached this topic with a nuclear physicist, apparently the trouble with thorium is that it’s *too* safe – sustaining the nuclear reaction is proving to be a sticking point in getting actual reactors off the ground.
eckythump
Sunday, January 22, 2012 at 2:51 PMWave power has a potential to supersede Solar simply by the fact that it is easier to get a higher percentage of output from kinetic energy than you can currently get from solar. Ad to that the fact that there is no night time for tides, making it a twenty four hour process! Nuclear has the potential to be a lot cleaner and more efficient than legacy plants, but it is complicated and very expensive to bring to fruition. Not to mention that people don’t want plants in their area. I really don’t understand why so much money has been poured into solar when the potential output from wave power is so much higher. It is also less complicated than wind power and can be located in so many locations around the coast. What are we doing now, fighting red tape and politics. If the CSIRO can help pull this technology into the here and now, lets push a bit harder and get it done!
John
Sunday, January 22, 2012 at 3:28 PMThere is usually big problem with all “renewables”, in the case of solar/wind etc they just aren’t consistent enough and we have to end up duplicating our generating capacity with gas or geothermal so we don’t end up with large spikes occurring across the grid, and that make no sense at all except if you are trying to make it look like you are doing something, compared to actually doing something. This is mostly the reason why power costs so much at present and has nothing to do with actually solving long term power production.
The only sane way forward is some kind of nuclear option, thorium looks like the best contender at this stage.
GigZ333
Sunday, January 22, 2012 at 3:42 PMCold Fusion… 50 years…. um ok. well something like a Molten Salt Reactor is what you need right now. It is a Fission base nuclear reaction. Basically it outputs same as a ordinary Fission reactor using Either Molten Salt or Thorium as fuel. it produces Radioactive Waste but it can be utilised very easily and its Half life only last around 100years.
Edward
Sunday, January 22, 2012 at 3:48 PMI agree, thorium is the best solution right now. Fusion in 30-50 years though.
Bruce
Sunday, January 22, 2012 at 3:55 PMNone of these are ‘solutions’ and pale in comparison to the efficiency of oil. There is no substitute for oil and never will, not for 7billion on the planet and definitely not for 10billion come 2050. Over population is the issue.
John
Sunday, January 22, 2012 at 4:52 PMWith sufficient energy production you can liquefy coal into a substitute for oil, and there is a LOT of coal lying about, especially if it doesn’t need to be burnt to produce electricity.
Surplus energy would also solve Australia’s other major problem, lack of fresh water.
Antipodean
Sunday, January 22, 2012 at 5:35 PMAnd with that attitude we will stay in the oil age till it run’s out and then we will be truly screwed! Just sayin man, gotta start the ball rollin, eh!
Bruce
Sunday, January 22, 2012 at 7:49 PMits not attitude, its maths. 1billion pre oil, discovery of oil leads to industrialisation (and other things), population grows. oil runs out, no other alternatives exist to replace adequately, population reverts back to being 1 billion.
Australia needs to break away from globalisation. They need to ensure they produce their own energy (100% like Iceland) and can survive economic matters that effect the rest of the world.
Australia is a fortunate country to have favourable climate so that energy requirements should be smaller than that of other countries.
GigZ333
Sunday, January 22, 2012 at 8:58 PMThats easy said than done. Australia Maybe big and have a small population, but that’s the downfall as less ppl = less money to the government which means small money or no money are funded to projects or research. As you said Iceland has there own energy, but they have practically unlimited fresh water and they have one of the highest standards of livings in the world. If Australia is going to break away from the rest of the world to create there own self living, it sure need to have money, abundance of food and water and more people. without the necessity a country breaking away from the world would end up like…… North Korea, without the slavery.
Ozoneocean
Sunday, January 22, 2012 at 10:16 PMNuclear is the idiot’s way out. It’s basically the “poor man” option: it looks like the easy way to go initially, but ends up costing massively more and being 10x more inconvenient in the long run. The poor man only thinks short term because that’s the only way he can afford to think, but that’s always why he STAYS poor.
Basically, poor man options are only cheaper initially because all costs, problems and issues are differed, but they cannot be deferred indefinitely.
We need to think LONG term. Investments have to be made somewhere, a Start has to be made somewhere or we’ll never get out of this expensive environmental hole that we’ve dun ourselves into.
Jason Jordan
Sunday, January 22, 2012 at 11:15 PMCarnegie Wave Energy in Fremantle WA are much closer to being commercially viable. They produce a closed-loop, submersible, tidal-powered pump that generates electricity and clean water. Worth a look! http://www.carnegiewave.com/
TSH
Monday, January 23, 2012 at 10:55 AMWow, what a cool idea! I’ve always envisioned energy generation on-site, but using waves to run a *water* pump for what amounts to a hydroelectric system – nice!
Jason
Monday, January 23, 2012 at 1:55 PMI’ve been following Carnegie Wave for a couple years now….it’s a fantastic concept but they can’t seem to get past pilots…?
Genna
Sunday, January 22, 2012 at 11:26 PMThink of all those nuclear plants with cooling ponds that run refrigerated water over spent fuel rods. If the refrigeration conks out in one of them, a few hours later you’ll have at least a few thousand hectares of “permanently” unlivable land. Nuclear will never be truly safe!
Philip Bradley
Monday, January 23, 2012 at 11:06 AMWave power generation doesn’t harness the kinetic energy of waves. It harnesses the potential energy of waves. Wave moves something up then gravity moves it down. But then physics isn’t generally a Green advocate’s strong suit.