Ocean power: catching a wave but ahead of the curve

Wave power may eventually become a factor in providing electrical energy, but it isn't going to happen before we've all switched to flourescent or LED lighting. And it may not happen before we are paying $150 for a barrel of crude oil.

Recently the US approved plans for a wave-powered generating facility off the coast of Northern California. Once in operation the plant would sell power to Paxcific Gas & Electric.

The installation will be built by Vancouver, BC-based Finavera. The firm is publicly traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange. And looking at their evaluation I think they are ahead of the curve: Finavera stock is now worth half what it was a year ago. Clearly the market is not wildly optmistic about wave power.

That's doesn't mean an end to numerous more efforts to build wave-powered generation devices. Just google "wave power" and take a look...there's even one in Namibia. That'll be built by Aussie firm, Oceanlinx.

Here's a blog from a couple months ago where I took a look at wave power projects in Europe and elsewhere. here will be many more shifts in the ocean tides before wave power becomes a tsunami in financial terms. But perhaps we can allow some optimism that it will eventually pay off. Finevera certainly hopes so.