Test buoy for wave energy sinks off Oregon coast

Assoc Press ^

[SoldierMedic]

NEWPORT, Ore. — The first wave energy test buoy deployed off the Oregon Coast is now 150 feet below the ocean surface.

Mike Clark, a spokesman for Finavera Renewables, a Canadian energy developer, said the 72-foot-tall buoy began taking on water late last week and sank just one day before engineers were going to remove it.

The company plans to recover the $2 million buoy next spring, when the ocean calms, Clark told The Oregonian newspaper.

[SoldierMedic]

ping!

[TRY ONE]

Join the Navy and ride the waves. :-)

[Cicero]

Clark said the underwater buoy poses no threat to the environment.

Well, that's a relief. Although the Dungeness Crab Commission begs to differ.

[subterfuge]

"We've got a big chunk of iron laying at the bottom of the ocean which will probably gobble up a bunch of crab gear," he said. "It's just another place for things to collect and make a big mess."

Well the ocean floor should always be nice and tidy right?

[I see my hands]

Did you hear the one about the English guy, the Pope, and Raquel Welch in a lifeboat?

[mikeus_maximus]

oops.

[ArrogantBustard]

If this was off the East Coast, the wreck fishing crowd would want it left there.

[RSmithOpt]

Man, I hate it when my buoy sinks!! Mankind has only been building them for how long? Was the buoy made in China? Too much lead?

[day10]

Doh!!

[maine-iac7]

ummm - well, ahhh

Why would one expect that something plopped in the middle of the ocean in high wave territory would take on water'? No need to design it so's it wouldn't 'take on water'...what's 72 million, give or take a dollar...

[enraged]

72 feet long, $2mill,

[Ghost of Philip Marlowe]

72-foot-tall??

That’s not an eye sore?

Build oil wells and extract oil from the coast of CA and Gulf of Mexico instead.

[1rudeboy]

[CharlesWayneCT]

long. It doesn’t stick up that far.

[NonValueAdded]

LOST!

[PAR35]

The company plans to recover the $2 million buoy next spring

At that price, it might be worth a salvage effort. Wonder if it's still going to be there by spring?

[SoldierMedic]

If it’s heavy enough, I don’t see it moving too far from where it is now.

Besides, if they were smart they probably attached some sort of beacon or GPS to it in case it drifted away, or sank.

[PAR35]

If it’s heavy enough, I don’t see it moving too far from where it is now.

Depends on how big of a crane you put on your salvage tug.

[Aquinasfan]

You could gather a lot of energy from ocean waves by floating huge weights over a large area in shallow waters. As a wave rolls by, the weight would ratchet up a pole. At its apex, the weight would remain in place. When the wave hits its trough, the weight would be released, driving a turbine... Then I thought, someone must have thought of this already. And they have.

This seems to me like a very efficient, almost inexhaustible supply of energy. So why hasn't it happened yet? Too expensive, relatively?