Capturing the Motion of the Ocean

摘要

Energy Department-supported "Azura" wave energy converter is installed at a U.S. Navy test site in Hawaii. We live on a water planet. Roughly 71 percent of the Earth is covered in the stuff, and it's constantly in motion - tides surging rhythmically; powerful currents coursing beneath the surface; waves rolling across oceans and crashing against continents. All that motion produces mind-boggling quantities of kinetic energy, just a stone's throw from some of the nation's most populated areas. If we were to capture just a tiny fraction of the ocean's energy, it could supply clean, reliable electricity to more than 150 million Americans living near the coast.