As the global economy rebounds from COVID-19 more quickly than expected, and extreme temperatures tax fuel reserves, the world is heading into a new global energy crisis. The last time we faced a crisis like this, in the 1970s, countries scrambled to make wind and solar energy a reality, and launched both industries. This time, wave energy is ready to meet the crisis. Resourcing wave energy, at this stage when companies like Seabased are already close to commercialization, would not only be a real solution for the problem today, but would powerfully combat the issue of rising CO2 emissions and global temperatures from here on. Conversely, investing in fossil fuel production as a solution would be like throwing fuel oil on a burning planet.
On October 6, addressing the European Parliament, Energy Commissioner Kadri Simpson noted that wind and solar—those industries the world supported and encouraged in the last energy crisis-- are not exposed to the price volatility of fossil fuels and generate the cheapest electricity in Europe:
“We have to be clear. The current price hike has little to do with our climate policies and much to do with our dependence on imported fossil fuels and their volatile prices,” she said. “The Green Deal provides the only lasting solution to Europe’s energy challenge: more renewables and improved energy efficiency.… The best response to the price challenge is to progress faster towards our target goal of 65% of renewable electricity by 2030.”
Time for wave to enter the renewable energy market
Wind and solar have transformed the energy landscape; but they can’t do it alone. After decades of development and deployment, they still provide only 10% of the power on the grid. They are simply too intermittent to generate the baseload of power grid operators need to meet demand. Electricity from ocean wave energy could provide more than 100% of the world’s current electric demand. Waves work 24/7, 365 days a year. Grid operators can predict, from 5-14 days in advance, how much wave power they can add to their baseload, and plan accordingly. Waves don’t have to be huge to produce meaningful amounts of power, either. Seabased, for example, has optimized its system to work best with 1-3 meters waves.
Despite the numerous benefits of wave, though, bringing wave energy to the market has taken longer than wind and sun took, and not just because the latter had more government support. The very advantages that wave energy has can make building a wave energy park very difficult. Building a technology that will survive in constantly moving saltwater—a substance 800 times denser than air—presents a daunting engineering challenge. Ocean testing costs considerably more than testing on land. Yet while journals and “experts” determined that these concerns made wave energy too difficult, too expensive, or too futuristic, to consider as a solution to the world’s energy and climate problems, companies like Seabased have been plugging away, solving the problems one at a time.
We’re currently optimizing our system that was designed from hundreds of patents as we figured out:
How to make wave energy work in the moderate waves that are most common in populated areas.
How to turn inputs from many different waves happening at different seconds into a single stream of grid-ready electricity.
How to protect our technology from the turbulent ocean environment by resting it safe on the ocean floor.
How to both make significant amounts of clean electricity and protect the environment, even increase biodiversity.
How to keep the costs low so wave energy can compete, in many markets, against currently used fuel sources.
The ocean wave energy industry has been tackling the obstacles to commercializing wave power with relatively little financial or policy support compared to wind and solar. Seabased and a few other companies whose technologies may work best in different environments, are now only months away from commercialization and making wave energy a viable source of electricity around the globe.
Wave power is an endless source of clean electricity
Ocean waves are a ubiquitous, endlessly renewable power source. The oceans cover 70% of the surface of the planet and most of the largest cities around the globe are coastal. We can map the wave resource to know where our technology will provide the best solution. It’s time to help push this emerging technology into the world. Wave energy can help solve the current and growing global energy crisis. It can also provide energy security and economic benefit to economically depressed areas that are currently completely dependent on expensive and polluting imported fossil fuels and are at greatest risk from the coming crisis.
This is wave power’s moment.
As Kadri Simpson told the EU: “Ultimately, the solution is the same, whether it’s about prices, security of supply or climate: scaling up local, affordable, renewable energy is the way forward.”