Why Has Wave Power Been Slow to Take Off?

Here are excerpts from the article linked below that attempts to answer the question posed above.  After each, I’ll add my own comments.

Article: Why has wave power lagged behind other renewable energy sources?

Craig: Would you ask why butanol-fueled vehicles are lagging behind gasoline, diesel and electric? No, you would say, “Apparently, butanol-powered transportation is a concept without merit”  (and you’d be right). In fact, the overwhelming majority of the concepts that go through our minds never come anywhere close to taking off.

Article: With oceans covering 75% of the planet, the energy generated by waves holds huge potential.

Craig: The surface area of the oceans is irrelevant.  Moreover, you need to be careful if you want to use the word “potential” in a meaningful way. There are 38 pounds of gold in a cubic mile of seawater, worth $737,280 right this moment.  You could say that mining gold from that seawater has “potential” too…until you realize that the cost of doing so would be many thousands of times the value of the gold.

Article: Sources such as wind and solar are growing in prevalence, but they do not provide a constant supply of energy, meaning a combination of different sources is needed, with wave and tidal power a key alternative.

Craig:  Solar and wind are variable, and this does constitute a challenge that is being addressed with energy storage, long-distance transmission, and the integration of dispatchable resources.  Wave energy is also variable, btw.

Article: The potential of wave power has not yet been fully realized, partially due to the higher cost of building structures in the ocean, the possibility of damage from storms, the practicalities of maintaining offshore wave farms, and the potential damage to marine environments.

Craig:  I think you’ve just nailed it.  If wave energy were cheaper, less risky, and carrying fewer externalities, we could have an interesting conversation here.  But that’s like saying that if I had received a X chromosome from my father, I’d have been born female.  I didn’t.  I wasn’t.

The nail in the coffin is not the absolute position of wave vs. solar and wind; rather it’s the trajectory.  The latter are getting better and cheaper each week; the former has been essentially abandoned, for the reasons discussed above.

FWIW, I have no doubt that wave energy is a solid idea, at least right now, for a very small portion of the Earth’s energy portfolio.  These would be remote regions of coastline that are extremely difficult to serve in any other way.

When Californians fly home from Europe, the typical flight route takes us over the Hebrides, and we wistfully look out the window, wishing we could have stayed a couple of extra days and explored places like the one shown below.  If I owned this place, I’d be exploring wave energy in a big way.