TITLE:

WAVE ENERGY POTENTIALS: MODELING AND RESOURCE ESTIMATE (No. 41)

DATE:

Friday, March 26th, 2004

TIME:

3:30 PM

LOCATION:

GMCS 214

SPEAKER:

Asfaw Beyene, Department of Mechanical Engineering, San Diego State University

ABSTRACT:

With the current rate of consumption, the US oil will deplete in about 40 years, and the natural gas resources will last no longer than about 60 more years. This troubling rate of consumption imposes the need for new frontiers of energy sources and efficient use of the remaining assets. There is a growing confidence that wave energy can be a clean and reliable energy source adding to the pool of renewables currently at various stages of development.

In an effort to study the feasibility of wave energy conversion off the California coast, a collection of deepwater wave records including Coastal Information Data Program (CDIP) Data from UCSD Scripps Institute of Oceanography, National Data Buoy Center (NDBC) Data from NOAA, Wave Information Study (WIS) results, Pacific Ocean Reanalysis Wind 50 year time series, and Comprehensive Ocean-Atmosphere Data Set (COADS) were assessed to create a statistically reliable wave data set. From this data set, a long-term annual average and monthly offshore wave probability distributions were created for ten one degree latitude bins bounded by 100 m and 1000 m depth contours seaward of California coast. The probability distributions were used to simulate and quantify the potential for useful energy extraction from the coastal wave of California. These results will be summarized. An overview of the status of ocean wave energy technologies and factors impacting their development will be reviewed. Applicability of the results is prone to the many different types of wave energy converter (WEC) technologies that exist in many different states of development expected to operate in varying field conditions.

HOST:

Jose Castillo

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