Rough Waters Slow Progress In The U.s.

摘要

Even as it thrives in Europe, sea-based renewable energy is struggling to stay afloat in U.S. waters. Finavera Renewables planned to set up four giant "power buoys," which create energy by bobbing up and down, at offshore sites in California and Washington. But after a test unit sank in a storm,rnthe Vancouver (B.C.) company quit the proj -ect, opting instead to build onshore wind farms. Meanwhile, at a site in New York City's East River, Verdant Power ran into snags with its first two underwater generators. They use three -bladed turbines to convert tidal flows into energy, but fast-moving waters snapped the blades. A new design has solved that problem, says Chairman and CEO Ronald Smith, but regulatory red tape has proved so costly that expanding into new markets remains a challenge. Then there's Ocean Power Technologies in Pennington, N. J. It just sold its first power - generating buoy to a utility, but not in the U.S. The order came from Iberdrola in Spain.