Ocean power surges amid tide of energy alternatives

clipped from www.worldofrenewables.com That's still true - commercial-scale deployment is at least five years away. Yet there are fresh signs that ocean power is surging. And if all goes well, WaveConnect, the wave-energy pilot project at Humboldt that's being developed by Pacific Gas and Electric Co. (PG&E), could by next year deploy five commercial-scale wave systems, each putting 1 megawatt of ocean-generated power onto the electric grid. At less than 1 percent of the capacity of a big coal-fired power plant, that might seem a pittance. Yet studies show that wave energy could one day produce enough power to supply 17 percent of California's electric needs - and make a sizable dent in the state's greenhouse gas emissions. Nationwide, ocean power's potential is far larger. Waves alone could produce 10,000 megawatts of power, about 6.5 percent of US electricity demand - or as much as produced by conventional hydropower dam generators, estimated the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI)