https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbAtZyy4zRI Think "renewable energy" and the wind and sun come to mind, but someday it may be possible to add ocean energy to that list. The fledgling wave energy industry is getting a boost from the federal government. The Department of Energy is spending up to $40 million to build a wave energy test facility off the Oregon coast. Wave energy has a long way to go before it's ready to power the lights in your house. At this point, engineers aren't even quite sure how best to capture the power of the water. "We don't know what the right kind of wave energy converter is," says Belinda Batten, executive associate dean of the College of Engineering at Oregon State University. Batten says part of the challenge is that the ocean moves in different directions depending on the location. "It goes up and down when you're out in the water," she says. "As you're getting close to the coast, it's going back and forth in surge. Within the ocean, the particles go around
↧
