By KYLE ODEGARD
Gazette-Times reporter | Posted: Friday, October 19, 2007 12:00 am
Sometimes, Mother Nature just doesn't cooperate with Oregon State University's scientists. (Maybe she's a Duck.)
Stormy weather this fall prevented OSU from a day-long deployment of its wave energy buoy, but a partial test run Saturday yielded useful data for researchers hoping to harness electricity from the ocean.
"It's just too rough out there," said Gregg Kleiner, director of marketing and communications for OSU's College of Engineering. "Had we had blue skies for a week here, we probably would have gone forward with this."
The deployment has been delayed until next June or July. That is, if the weather permits.
The university planned to do both the partial deployment and a longer test of the generator, which was initially set for late September.
"It's not a setback," Kleiner said. "It's OK they didn't get the second run out. …The second run would have just been a little bit more information."
With a sliver of decent weather Saturday, the prototype provided plenty of data during its partial test, about 2.5 miles off Newport in the Pacific Ocean, Kleiner said.
While other wave buoys use hydraulics, OSU's generator has magnets to produce electricity.
A metal coil inside the buoy is tethered to the bottom of the ocean, and as the buoy bobs up and down in the waves, it creates an electrical current.
During the trial run, the wave buoy was towed for the first time, but the buoy wasn't attached to the existing mooring.
This winter, though, research will continue at OSU laboratories, including in the O.H. Hinsdale Wave Research Lab, where a wave flume can rock the generator. A test bed that can simulate the power of waves also is being installed. OSU also deployed wave monitoring equipment on Saturday, and that will be used to control the test bed.
The university also is refining a method of mooring the generator offshore that doesn't require divers.
While OSU wasn't able to do the planned full testing of its wave generator this fall, a private company has been testing its hydraulic wave energy device off Newport.
Finavera, a Canadian company, has used its test buoy to collect data, and its generator will be removed from the ocean sometime near the end of October.
The next step for the company will be creating a buoy that will transmit the wave energy to the electrical power grid.
Kyle Odegard covers Oregon State University. He can be contacted at kyle.odegard@lee.net or 758-9523.