[NYTr] Env: Energy from Ocean Waves Generates Controversy in Pacific Northwest

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

The New York Times - Dec 8, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/08/us/08waves.html

Efforts to Harvest Ocean’s Energy Open New Debate Front

By WILLIAM YARDLEY

NEWPORT, Ore. — Chris Martinson and his fellow fishermen catch crab and
shrimp in the same big swell that one day could generate an important
part of the Northwest’s energy supply. Wave farms, harvested with
high-tech buoys that are being tested here on the Oregon coast, would
strain clean, renewable power from the surging sea.

They might make a mess of navigational charts, too.

“I don’t want it in my fishing grounds,” said Mr. Martinson, 40, who
docks his 74-foot boat, Libra, here at Yaquina Bay, about 90 miles
southwest of Portland. “I don’t want to be worried about driving around
someone else’s million-dollar buoy.”

The coastal Northwest is one of the few parts of the West where water
is abundant, but people are still fighting over it. Amid concerns about
climate change and the pollution caused by generating electricity with
coal and natural gas, Oregon is looking to draw power from the waves
that pound its coast with forbidding efficiency.

It might seem a perfect solution in a region that has long been ahead
of the national curve on alternative energy. Yet the debate over the
potential damage — whether to the environment, the fishing industry or
the stunning views of the Pacific — has become intense before the first
megawatt has been transmitted to shore.

“Everyone wants that silver bullet,” said Fran Recht of the Pacific
States Marine Fisheries Commission. “The question is, Is this as benign
as everyone wants to say it is?”

The first federal permit to conduct testing for a wave energy farm off
the coast of the United States was awarded in February to a company
that wants to study the ocean area near Reedsport, Ore., 60 miles south
of here. Three more permits have since been approved by the Federal
Energy Regulatory Commission.

Major technical and financial obstacles remain, and energy generated
from waves is not expected to start contributing to the electrical grid
in the United States for several years. Yet like wind energy in its
early stages in the 1980s, wave energy is considered promising, perhaps
inevitable, with the potential to one day provide 5 percent to 10
percent of the nation’s energy supply, according to some projections.

Oregon, Washington and Northern California, where the Pacific Ocean
first meets land in the contiguous United States after gathering
momentum for thousands of miles beneath westerly winds, have the
potential to generate four times as much energy from waves as states on
the East Coast, according to studies by the Electric Power Research
Institute.

All of the permits approved have been in Oregon, where transmission
lines run close to the coast, making them easier to tap into, and where
state government encourages businesses to explore new forms of energy.

With state support, Oregon State University is testing a wave energy
buoy it plans to deploy off the coast here next spring.

Finavera Renewables, a Canadian company with an office in Portland, has
conducted tests near the Yaquina Head lighthouse here, and has a permit
to do more testing near Coos Bay. Ocean Power Technologies, the company
planning the project near Reedsport, has received a preliminary permit
to test the potential for a wave farm it says could generate up to 50
megawatts of electricity. A typical coal-burning plant produces about
600 megawatts.

Several kinds of technology are being tested. Some would use buoys that
hold turbines turned by waves. One type being tested at Oregon State
would create energy from the relative movement between a fixed spar and
a buoy that rises and falls with waves.

The Reedsport project could transmit energy to shore through an outflow
pipe once used by a now-defunct timber mill. That convergence of old
economy and new reflects what supporters of wave energy say is fitting
symmetry for a region that has evolved from an extraction-based economy
built on logging to one striving to use natural resources in ways that
are environmentally sound.

But some environmentalists and fishermen worry that the recent rush for
renewable energy is more about politics, big business and the next big
thing than it is about clean energy. They warn that too little is known
about what effect wave farms might have on migrating fish and whales.

“The tendency with new technology is always to minimize the downside,”
said Ms. Recht, of the fisheries commission, which works with
conservation agencies and the fishing industry to protect fish
populations. “I’m not prepared to take new risks unless we’re
conserving and respecting the energy we already have.”

Nancy Fitzpatrick, the administrator of the Oregon Salmon Commission,
which is financed by the fishing industry, said: “Is it going to impact
us? Going way back to the dams, we find out later that of course, yes,
it affected salmon and migration. So we don’t want to be stuck in a
situation like that with wave energy.”

For now, wave parks are expected to be built two or three miles
offshore and cover as much as several square miles. Supporters say they
will barely be visible, it at all.

Philip D. Moeller, a member of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission
and a supporter of wave and tidal energy projects, said the government
was “not allowing these to go into sensitive areas.” Mr. Moeller added,
“We haven’t defined sensitive area, but the point is we’ll be cognizant
of that.”

He said the commission was encouraging wave energy companies to seek a
new five-year “pilot license” the commission has created specifically
for wave and tidal energy projects. The license, which could be gained
in six months, would let companies set up a short-term wave farm to
test technology and demonstrate success to wary investors. If
environmental damage became evident, he said, the equipment could be
removed from the ocean fairly quickly, something that is far more
complicated with dams.

“Let’s get this stuff in the water and find out what it has to offer,”
Mr. Moeller said. “Consumers want green power, and this is an option.”

Erik Olsen contributed reporting.

Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company