PERTH - For millennia, Australia's rugged southern coast has been carved by the relentless action of waves crashing ashore. Soon the same wave energy could be harnessed to power cities and towns and sharply reduce the country's carbon emissions.
"Waves are already concentrated solar energy," says Michael Ottaviano, who leads a Western Australian firm developing a method to turn wave power into electricity.
"The planet has been heated by the sun, creating wind, which creates the swells."
Ottaviano is the CEO of Carnegie Corp., which has developed a method of using energy from the waves to generate high-pressure seawater. This is piped onshore to drive turbines and also create desalinated water. He says that wave power has the potential, eventually, to supply all of Australia's energy needs many times over. Several sites in Western Australia, including Albany in the south and Garden Island off Perth, look promising for wave power development.
- Reuters.
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