Renewable resource washes over Oregon

Gov. Ted Kulongoski would like to see 25 percent of Oregon’s energy come from renewable sources by 2025, and on Monday he took a look at some of the technology that could help do that: Oregon State University’s work to harness the power of the ocean’s waves.

During a Monday visit to OSU, Kulongoski saw demonstrations of the university’s direct-drive prototype buoys.

“We really have the opportunity to be the leader in wave energy in the nation,” said Annette von Jouanne, OSU electrical engineering professor and co-principal investigator for the university’s wave-energy program.

Von Jouanne, along with other experts and members of the group People of Oregon for Wave Energy Research, believe the Oregon coast is the ideal site for a U.S. ocean-energy research and demonstration center.

OSU already boasts the nation’s leading energy-systems laboratory, a wave-research laboratory with the world’s largest tsunami basin and a state-of-the-art motor-systems research facility.

Von Jouanne and her colleagues point to Reedsport, a two-and-a-half hour drive from OSU along the southern Oregon coast, as an optimal demonstration site, thanks to the good wave action there. In addition, Reedsport is close enough to OSU to use its facilities and faculty.

OSU also has the Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport and partnerships with Oregon Sea Grant and members of the fishing and crabbing industries.

OSU President Ed Ray, along with graduate students, energy experts and state representatives, joined the governor on his tour.

“It is estimated that if 0.2 percent of the ocean’s untapped energy could be harnessed, it could provide power sufficient for the entire world,” von Jouanne noted.

Von Jouanne and Kulongoski spoke to the economic potential of wave energy, and how many equipment- manufacturing and monitoring jobs the technology could provide for Oregonians.

Wave energy today is where wind energy was 15 years ago, von Jouanne said. Right now, ocean energy costs about 25 cents per kilowatt hour, whereas wind energy costs 4 cents per kilowatt hour.

In the future, von Jouanne believes ocean energy will be more affordable, predictable and consistently available than wind energy.

In addition to a research wave-energy center, von Jouanne would also like to see Oregon house the nation’s first commercial wave-energy park — the oceanic equivalent of a wind park.

Direct-drive buoys being developed at OSU are designed to be anchored one to two miles offshore, in water that’s at least 100 feet deep, where the buoys will experience gradual, repetitive ocean swells.

One prototype von Jouanne showed Monday, the permanent magnet linear generator buoy, relies on ocean waves causing electrical coils to move through a magnetic field, inducing voltages and generating electricity.

OSU faculty and students also have developed a permanent magnet rack and pinion generator buoy, and a contactless direct-drive generator buoy.

The buoys will not be visible from the shoreline, so they won’t disturb the coast’s aesthetics, von Jouanne said.

As more funding becomes available, the university can include more students in its program, von Jouanne said, and she noted that students from around the world are interested in OSU’s wave-energy research.

Several European countries have experimental wave-energy models, and a small number have devices that are producing useful energy. However, direct-drive wave energy technology is unique to OSU.

And OSU President Ray said he thought that would give the university an edge. Europeans, he said, “have technology that works, but we have the direct-drive that will be the leader in the industry,” Ray said.