Modern Money Operations  

In the view of many, (Bedard, et al) there should be clearly defined benchmarks for the development of renewable energy policies, programs and funding mechanisms. National/global polices need to address immediate problems with immediate solutions not extensive research/testing, which is the ploy of the fossil fuel mavens with Universities, the government and other small firms lacking leverage to launch proven operational alternatives.

1.  A major criterion in setting public and private sector investment priorities for all energy solutions must be the extent to which carbon emissions are reduced per dollar of subsidy/investment.

2.  A second criterion is that renewable solutions must be clean and relatively cost efficient given competing renewable alternatives. In Wendell Berry's words: "It must become the linchpin for security, economy, equity, and environmental quality. The cheapest, fastest, and smartest approach in the near term is energy efficiency. Next we need a distributed energy system based on renewable energy — not coal and nuclear.

We do not know yet how to sequester carbon from coal-fired power plants or how to deal with the toxic byproducts of burning coal; nuclear amplifies the danger of terrorism and requires massive subsidies, and we still don't know what to do with the radioactive waste.

Coal and nuclear are problem switching, not problem solving. Behind the scenes, however, well-funded lobbies are pushing hard for them, while the public interest in smarter choices is more diffuse and far less organized." 

What then must we pursue as an ultimate solution that is renewable, clean and, can be produced and distributed at costs far below current modalities?? For 85 years the answer has been ocean energy.

In the U.S., the cost to produce one kilowatt hour of energy ranges from .02 cents to .60 cents per kilowatt hour for fossil fuels and nuclear, thanks to production tax credits, and a host of other subsidies. For renewable modalities, the costs range from .25 cents to .60 cents per kilowatt hour. These costs could be reduced partially by tax subsidies as generous as those handed out to non-renewables. Doing so would reduce costs/kwh to that experienced by the fossil fuel freaks. We have been led to believe that these fossil fuel prices per kwh are the best competitive prices we can expect. Not so!

In the short-run, energy produced through hydro power is inexpensive by comparison. Coulee and similar dams produce electricity at .02 to .07 cents/kw. The press is going along with the fossil fuel barons, printing small stories here and there about ocean energy from tides, waves, and currents, but not doing any in depth stories, on what should be jumped on as a big story the minute they saw it. Such an opportunity was provided by Ocean Resource Group, with offices in Miami, and New Brunswick, they put ocean technology's' potential on the line, stating we only need 1% of the available power from ocean' very swift currents to light up the world.

Estimates of the worldwide economically recoverable wave energy resource are in the range of 140 to 750 Tera wh/yr for existing wave-capturing technologies that have become fully mature (ETNWG 2003). With projected long-term technical improvements, this could be increased by a factor of 2 to 3  

(Thorpe 1999). The fraction of the total wave power that is economically recoverable in U.S. offshore regions has not been estimated, but would be significant even if only a small fraction of the 2,100 TWh/yr available is captured.

The total annual average wave energy off the U.S. coastlines (including Alaska and Hawaii), calculated at a water depth of 60 m has been estimated (Bedard et al. 2005) at 2,100 Terawatt-hours (TWh) (2,100—10 to the twelfth).

Currently, approximately 11,200 TW hr/yr of primary energy is required to meet total U.S. electrical demand.) WEC devices have the greatest potential for applications in the Northeast Passamaquoddy Bay, Southern and Northern California coastal regions because of the combination of the relatively high ratio of available shoreline per unit energy requirement, availability of greater unit wave energies due to trade winds, and the relatively high costs of other local energy sources. Wave energy can be produced and distributed at .04 to .08 cents/kwh without subsidies.

The Fossil Fuel Folks will Foam at the mouth, when obscene profits are threatened by 2 cents/kwh electricity generated from the clean, renewable ocean. However, the real money in the new order of ocean energy will be in distribution infrastructure. The fossil Fuel Freaks can buy into the electric power grid distribution system at any point from initial transmission to intermittent storage, to final delivery at our toasters. True, profit margins won't be obscene, but there will be profits derived from capturing the 76% of American power users who got sucked into the Fossil Fuel Furnace especially after Henry Ford mass produced the model T and then bought into fossil fuel profits and switched from steam driven motors to the internal combustion engine.

There are technologies that an be locally produce and placed in streams and rivers with at least a meter in depth and a flow rate of 1 k/s. Such a device is currently used in the Amazon and in S. Korea to generate electricity for thousands of users. GCK Technologies and Lucient Technologies deployed a GHT, Gorlov Helical Turbine. Full story at this link. http://www.gcktechnology.com/GCK/pg2.html

The GHT is scalable. In 2005 the S. Korean government tested several GHTs 3m x 1m and they produced enough electricity to power 80,000 homes on Jindo Island in the Uldulmok Straits.

Since 2005 there has been little if any further news about the GHT, leaving me to wonder if the folks in the fossil fuel industry are involved with quashing further development of the GHT.