Better than wave power, which requires buoy farms floating in the middle of the ocean and can be problematic for ships passing by, tidal power has turbines sitting on the sea floor. A great benefit of tidal power plants is their very high capacity factor hovering around 98%, i.e. better than a nuclear or coal plant. Tidal and hydro power are the only renewable sources that can provide base load power to the grid and therefore hold the most promise – wind and solar require some type of energy storage.

South Korea, the UK and France all have tidal projects in progress, or completed. So contrary to what the article below says the technology is there! Capital costs are probably high, because these projects haven’t been done quite enough yet, to bring the cost down, but once built, energy is essentially free, just some operational and maintenance costs which are probably equivalent or lower than other power plant types.

Tidal projects also come with decent capacity. The South Korean Sihwa Lake Tidal Power Station, which opened last April, is 254MW. So yes it can be done. The US is simply behind, or has a different agenda.  
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Ocean wave power projects seek solid footing on West Coast

By Mike Lee
San Diego Union Tribune
08/15/2011  

Harnessing power from ocean waves or currents has a big upside but it also has could have negative impacts on the ocean environment, according to a 2008 report by Oregon State University and others. Posisble problems include:

• Pelagic habitat: Minimizing entanglement of sea turtles in loose lines is crucial and some scientists are concerned about potential effects of electromagnetic fields created by the operations.

• Benthic habitat: Wave-energy facilities likely will affect local currents and that may change the movement of sediment and larvae. Organisms growing on buoys, cables and anchors may alter sandy seafloor environments where they will be placed.

• Fish: Large facilities could affect migration of salmon, crabs, sturgeon, whales and other creatures.

• Seabirds: Above-water structures may attract birds and alter food webs.

• Marine mammals: Mooring cables may lead to animals getting unintentionally snared.

The cancellation of three ocean wave-energy projects in Sonoma County leaves a proposal north of Oceanside as the only one of its kind off California’s coast.

There’s wide interest in harnessing the ceaseless power of the ocean because so-called hydrokinetic energy facilities could provide a steady source of energy without air pollution or toxic waste.

But there are so many barriers that the concept hasn’t generated much momentum in California despite aggressive state mandates to ratchet up renewable power supplies. To reach commercial production, a wave-energy farm proposed near San Onofre would have to minimize interference with ocean ecosystems, the famous surf break at Trestles and Marine training at Camp Pendleton. Besides that, proponents must prove the technology will work in the corrosive waters of the ocean and navigate a grueling approval process.

Read full article here

The article below provides a great opportunity to once again showcase Harvard Business School professor Clay Christensen’s marketing framework as described in his book “The Innovator's Solution: Creating and Sustaining Successful Growth.” Christensen says essentially customers “hire” a product to do a specific “job” for them. For companies, understanding what “jobs” customers are trying to get done is an essential part of the internal decision-making when it comes to how to design or enhance products, and how to get more customers to buy more of the company’s products. Christensen explains this theory in simple language, using milkshakes as an example, click here

The three home energy management products below just failed Christensen’s “job” test. The way these products were designed assumed that the customers would “hire” these products to do fun science projects! Not surprisingly, only a small proportion of the population was interested in doing fun experiments like reading and trying to interpret or derive any useful information from hourly energy usage.

Intuitively, 1) electricity is pretty cheap, so most people don’t care much, and 2) people with big houses interested in lowering their electrical bills will “hire” a product that can do just that in a very simple way. Once again, user experience is key. Make it simple and easy for the consumer to save electricity and money--no matter how fancy, dashboards are useless if they’re not taking care of the “job” the consumer needs done.
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Why Internet companies are abandoning home energy plans

By Katie Fehrenbacher
Gigaom
08/11/2011

Throughout 2009 and 2010, Internet companies like Microsoft, Google and even router giant Cisco launched experimental software and hardware to help building managers and home owners monitor and control their energy consumption. While Microsoft and Google focused on consumer-facing software, Cisco decided it would build a home-energy dashboard and also sell building-energy-management products.

But now, 12 to 24 months later, all three of these players have ultimately made the decision to abandon those projects. Cisco was the latest one to jump ship, and on Wednesday afternoon it penned a blog post announcing the choice. Cisco plans to move away from both its building-energy tools, which it purchased via Richards-Zeta back in 2009, as well as its Home Energy Controller, an energy dashboard it had developed.

Little effort, little reward

First off, all of these firms were really just dabbling in and experimenting with the energy-management field. Cisco’s energy dashboard was actually a device created by Open Peak and customized by Cisco, and it was meant to be tested out in its smart-grid pilot trials with utilities. In Cisco’s blog post this week, it said after testing out the tools in its pilots that it decided it needed to evolve its strategy.

If you look at Google’s and Microsoft’s entire business lines — and balance sheets — their PowerMeter and Hohm energy web tools were minor projects. Google even launched PowerMeter out of Google.org, the company’s philanthropic arm, and actively said it had no business model for the software.

Lack of consumer interest

Ultimately Google and Microsoft shut down PowerMeter and Hohm, partly because not enough consumers signed up to use the service. The tools were free and easily available on their websites, but at this point consumers just lack the fundamental interest in spending time managing their home energy consumption.

Read full article here