Harnessing the motion of the ocean for electricity

I literally just heard this interview with Jason Busch, the executive director of the non-profit Oregon Wave Energy Trust, (OWET) on NPR's show Talk of the Nation.  He describes their wave apparatus which is the first to be built on commercial scale and placed in the shores of Oregon. I'm not doing much justice to the interview and you should listen to it. Marine energy capturing is a hot topic in renewable energy, but is not a new thought for the renewable energy field.

These two videos are brought to you by the Green Economy.

A quick summary of the first video:
The coastal region of Oregon is a prime area for a wave energy farm because it has good electrical infrastructure built by retired timber mills and has reliable wave energy potential. What Oregon Wave Energy Trust has done is to build a devise that converts wave motion into energy. OWET has likened it's harnessing apparatus to an upright submarine. A floating portion sits stationary on top of the water and moves up and down on the spar via a ballast.  The whole apparatus is fixed on a buoy keeping it upright. The relative motion caused by the wave can be converted into electricity using turbines or by good old fashioned magnet and coil.

This second video describes how they built the apparatus. The thing is huge and heavy! It is about 150 ft long, 40 ft in diameter, and weighs 220 tons. Wow!

Very cool technology!!

HowStuffWorks also has a list of other methods for harnessing wave energy that you can read about here.