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Turning waves into watts
Minnesota is far from the ocean. But an Eden Prairie company hopes to make money from using ocean waves and swells to produce electricity.
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The next wave in renewable energy may come from the ocean.
But first, more real-world trials to ensure it can happen.
An Eden Prairie firm this month embarked on three months of testing in the Gulf of Mexico of a device for transforming into electricity the force of the sea. The mechanism also promises to help make freshwater from the briny deep.
If all goes well, executives of Independent Natural Resources hope to have a piece of a multibillion-dollar industry five to 10 years from now.
"Because we can produce renewable energy on base-load [around the clock] to compete with fossil fuels, it really is the next-generation technology," said Douglas Sandberg, vice president of the company.
He foresees the day when 10,000 to 22,000 Seadog pumps, delivering large volumes of seawater to on-shore electric turbines or desalinization plants, will occupy energy farms that take up no more than a square mile of offshore coastline.
Researchers hired by the company did a "visual impact" study in California to answer concerns of environmentalists and people who live and play near beaches. It showed thousands of the pumps, with little more than a lattice of pipes visible above water, would be almost undetectable from land.
"You almost have to squint to see it," Sandberg said.
Seagoing energy farms could produce an average of 750 megawatts of electricity, enough to power 750,000 homes, Sandberg said.
In periods of calm seas, water already pumped to storage tanks can be released, letting gravity push turbines the way waterfalls have for centuries.
Two months of tests earlier this year on a nuts-and-bolts look at the Seadog device showed that the parts could hold up to pounding saltwater, Sandberg said.
This time out, the company has hired Texas A&M to certify that the device can reliably deliver electricity from ocean waves.
The company is so confident of the seaworthiness of its turbine pumps, turned by waves, that it doesn't fear the start of hurricane season.
"It's part of what we're testing -- reliability," Sandberg said. "We're glad to see bad weather down there." The Seadog prototype, 35 feet tall, rests on a base about 18 feet wide in water about 15 feet deep, a half-mile off the coast of Galveston, Texas.
The next step is to find buyers willing to pay to put Seadog technology to commercial use.
"We want to get some licensing agreements in place in the second half of the year," Sandberg said.
Mike Meyers • 612-673-1746
Mike Meyers • meyers@startribune.com
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