The U.S. Energy Department says it has half-a-million dollars to spend this year to test technologies that may be able to harness energy from ocean waves. The goal is to someday supply clean, renewable power to highly-populated coastal regions.
The $500,000 in taxpayer money will support one project to deploy and test a wave-energy conversion device for one year at the U.S. Navy’s Wave Energy Test Site in Kaneohe Bay, on the Hawaiian island of Oahu. The device must be “substantially complete and ready for testing and data collection without significant modification.”
As part of its alternative-energy agenda, the Obama administration is seeking wave-power technologies that “could further develop” the nation’s ocean energy resources, create new industries and new jobs in America, and secure U.S. leadership in the global race for clean energy technologies, the Energy Department said in its May 18 announcement.
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