The ocean is a vast source of stored energy, energy that is constantly being absorbed from wind. This source of energy now has the potential to play a vital role in the urgent need to decarbonise our atmosphere.
The ocean is a vast source of stored energy, energy that is constantly being absorbed from wind. This source of energy now has the potential to play a vital role in the urgent need to decarbonise our atmosphere.
The ocean is a vast source of stored energy, energy that is constantly being absorbed from wind. This source of energy now has the potential to play a vital role in the urgent need to decarbonise our atmosphere.
The ocean is a vast source of stored energy, energy that is constantly being absorbed from wind. This source of energy now has the potential to play a vital role in the urgent need to decarbonise our atmosphere.
The ocean is a vast source of stored energy, energy that is constantly being absorbed from wind. This source of energy now has the potential to play a vital role in the urgent need to decarbonise our atmosphere.
About Us and the Need for Renewable Energy
Ocean Renewables Ltd is an Irish registered company, incorporated in 2010 for the purpose of designing, developing and commercialising technologies that can utilise the sustainable energy resources of the oceans to produce carbon free electrical power. Since its formation the company has been fully engaged in the design and development of its own SEACATT technology. Wave energy has yet to be fully commercialised anywhere in the world and therefore, in the short term, Ocean Renewables will fund ongoing technology development by means of its own resources and various European or National funding opportunities. The most important resource the company has is the small team of people within it who move the project forward.
Energy, the Pressing Importance of Sustainability
Society can never reach its potential without sustainable energy resources.
In order to survive and thrive we must consume energy. Humans have survived very well and we are today expert at many forms of energy conversion. We convert energy from grass to meat, from wood to heat and from fossil fuels to electricity. Civilisation as we know it is only about 6,000 years old but over a short period of time we have become very effective at harvesting the planet’s energy resources compared with the first efforts of primitive man. Now our society is evolving rapidly to even higher levels of unprecedented complexity. Centuries have shown that the more complex a society is the more energy it will consume.
1998 to 2010, Twelve Years, One Billion People
It took roughly 200,000 years for the world’s population to achieve its first 1 billion people, this happened in the year 1800, by 1927 it had increased to 2 billion, which is an additional billion humans during a period of only 127 years.
By 1960, after a period of only 33 years, the total population of the world had reached 3 billion. Between 1960 and 1974, a mere 14 years, an additional 1 billion people were added bringing the total to 4 billion. Since 1974 the population has increased by approximately 1 billion people every 12 years to the total that is now 7 billion people living on the planet.
This is an environmental crisis, we must urgently confront the life threatening issues of climate change and the need to reduce the level of carbon that is being discharged into our atmosphere as a result of our present efforts to harvest energy. We will be able to convert enough fossil fuel to supply our energy needs in the very short-term but at the moment we are unable to produce what’s necessary, which is enough carbon free sustainable energy for the longer term.
The Whole Will Be Greater Than the Sum of its Parts
Its’ not a question of which resource or technology is best, as long-term, sustainable, cost effective energy solutions will most likely result from the smart integration of a spread of several different technologies, each capable of effectively exploiting the various sustainable resources available. To that extent it will always be worthwhile to explore a number of possibilities in order to arrive at a viable comprehensive solution, but apart from that, wave energy resources do have some distinct advantages.
When solar energy is naturally converted to wind energy, the wind transfers some of this energy to the oceans where it can be effectively stored and then harnessed for critically useful periods. Conditions that are favourable for commercial wind and solar operations are dependent on relatively localised atmospheric conditions which may result at times in highly variable and less predictable power production. Wave energy on the other hand can travel across hundreds of miles of ocean with little or no losses, and therefore has this advantage over wind and solar; wave energy does not depend entirely on local weather conditions yet wave energy can also benefit from local conditions when they are favourable.
High grid penetration levels for multiple renewable energy sources would be much easier to manage when favourable power production circumstances can be more reliably predicted, and wave power has the potential to be more reliable in this regard.