Wave Energy Isn’t Going To Make It
Facebook users who follow renewables are quite accustomed to seeing videos on ocean wave energy, like this one. I have to admit; there is an intuitive appeal to the subject, as we can all visualize the vast power of the waves as they traverse the globe and ultimately pound on the shores, and we can all recall body-surfing, getting swamped, and being tossed around like a piece of flotsam.
The problem is cost-effectiveness. It’s the old saw, “If you don’t care how much you pay for it, I’ll give you all the renewable energy you could possibly ask for.” The price of energy doesn’t justify the process of harvesting it from waves.
The 30 pounds of gold in a cubic mile of seawater is worth about $650,000. That sounds exciting, until we realize that the cost of recovering it far exceeds that figure.
Ten years ago, before the prices of solar and wind energy plummeted, wave energy held a great deal of promise; now I’m afraid that window has closed.
Craig,
This weekend in Melbourne, Australia a small festival for advocates of various sustainable or alternate lifestyle philosophies and technologies is taking place on one bank of the Yarra River which flows through the centre of the city.
With about 30 stall holders and over 50 speakers, the festival attracted less interest than previous years, but the variety was still very diverse. Tesla and and a couple of solar companies took part, along with a variety of Green political hopefuls. The rest were an eclectic mix of dreamers, crazies and earnest converts to everything from veganism to anti-immunization.
It’s always a bit disconcerting listening to fantastic claims by terribly earnest, well educated but one-eyed advocates for all sort of nonsense.
New to the scene are a group proselyting for a post-gender society. Earnestly advocates for advanced assisted reproduction eliminating the need for sex in reproduction. This group hopes to ensure all post-gendered humans, male and female, can carry a pregnancy to term post-genderists, thereby making gender roles and social stratification obsolete.
I love these festivals, they take me back to the mid ’60’s when the drugs and aspirations were still hopeful and harmless. Before Woodstock discended into Altamont.
The festivals diverse advocacy of the power of wave/tidal energy, crystals, and organic farming feeding the world population with vegan food, along with belief in all kinds of revisionist histories, weaves a sort of bizarre alternate universe operating on the fringe of reality. The company of such folk can be both stimulating and liberating for a few hours, like visiting a nostalgic wonderland.
Despite the warm summer night the festival seemed a little forlorn, the musical performers inadequate, self absorbed, and a pale shadow in comparison to the giants of yesteryear. Among the performers who tried to captivate a largely disinterested audience on the small stage, was young performer bearing an astonishing resemblance to a seventeen year old Susan Cowsill.
Intrigued by the similarity, i struck up an acquaintanceship, and later as we meandered along the river bank and parkland the irony struck me of an aging guy using google and U tube technology to recapture the nostalgia for songs and memories to entertain a girl who dreams of living a hippie lifestyle that disappeared at least a quarter of a century before she was born !
Wave energy may not be completely finished. Such technologies may not be economic in today’s economic dynamics, but who knows what the future may hold for such ideas ? It’s possible that a breakthrough in a seemingly unrelated technology may make another previously uneconomic technology suddenly feasible.
Social attitudes change with demographics and new dynamics caused by advancing technology. Like all evolutionary progress, not every change is necessarily beneficial. The internet and social media provide greater information and access, but can also be cruel and unforgiving, promoting negative social values.
( But, life can be surprising if one lives long enough, who would’ve thought I could find new relevance in a long forgotten song like the Cowsills’, Flower Girl :)).