Dec 11 2009

The Green Seen

Posted by: Leonard Anderson

Several items relating to the business and technology of clean energy and the environment caught our attention this week:

Nine European nations plan to build a wind power "supergrid" in the North Sea west of the Jutland Peninsula in Denmark. The plan, announced as the United Nations climate meetings began in Copenhagen, includes Denmark, Germany, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Sweden, Britain and Ireland. The move did not allocate any funds but a plan for moving forward should be crafted next year.

Ocean Power Technologies will build the first of 10 wave power buoys to place off the Oregon coast beginning next year. If the project succeeds, it would be the first U.S. commercial-scale wave energy farm. Ocean Power has contracted with Oregon Iron Works to build the first buoy, which will be tethered to the ocean floor 2.5 miles off the coast. Ten buoys would have capacity of 1.5 megawatts and generate power through a Bonneville Power Administration substation for 750 homes.

Atlantis Resources Corp. will test the world's biggest tidal energy turbine at the European Marine Energy Center test site off the Orkney Islands in the North Sea near Scotland. The 1-megawatt turbine is the height of a 5-story building and has rotors 18 meters in diameter. The test is in preparation for Scotland's plan to tap the ocean's energy to power about 500,000 homes by 2020.

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