China Military: Chinese Stealth Fighter "J-20" ( 2 ) 29/12/2010

Testing wave energy devices at the Wave Hub

As offshore wind power is developing at commercial scale, other sources of marine energy are being investigated to complete the renewable energy package (for example, see this older post).

The Wave Hub is a kind of giant seabed socket connected to the UK grid located 16 kilometers off Hayle on the north coast of Cornwall in South West England. The hub offers four separate berths (total capacity of 16-20 MW) allowing developers to test their wave energy devices. This offshore infrastructure is complemented by the Peninsula Research Institute for Marine Renewable Energy, a center of excellence providing world-leading research, facilities and technology transfer in marine energy (see PRIMaRE website). The Wave Hub is the world’s largest grid connected offshore marine energy test site.After Ocean Power Technologies (OPT), which has already signed a commitment agreement to deploy its PowerBuoy® device at the Wave Hub, a second berth has been filled by Ocean Energy that expects to install a full-scale device by the end of this year (press release). This will actually be the first device deployed at the Wave Hub. Ocean Energy has been testing a quarter-scale prototype of its OE Buoy in Ireland for three years. The 1.5 MW OE Buoy uses the oscillating water column to generate electricity as air is forced through a turbine both as waves enter a subsea chamber chasing air and as waves recede causing a vacuum. Efficiency is improved as the turbine rotates continuously.

France about to authorize experimentations on hydraulic fracturing

Le Monde, the famous French newspaper, revealed in its edition from March 24th that the “Report on source rock hydrocarbons” (in other words, shale oil and gas) was discretely published on March 22nd. This report, ordered by the Ministry of Industry and the Ministry of Environment, recommend the authorization of a limited number of drill in order to experiment hydraulic fracturing.

According to the French law of the 13 July 2011, hydraulic fracturing is prohibited, but Article 4 recognizes the right for experimentations. The evaluation comityargues that France cannot neglect substantial resources that would allow to reduce its energy costs. According to the comity, hydraulic fracturing is for the moment the only available technique allowing the exploitation of shale hydrocarbons. The experts therefore argue that “scientific drills” should be allowed in order to reduce the potential risks of this technique. They recommend that these experimentations be limited to the Parisian Basin where exploration licenses for shale oil are already granted. This is probably also a prudent approach in order to avoid the regions were protestations of the locals were more vigorous and could still be easily roused.

I recommend the reading of the original paper in Le Monde, here. And the complete report can be downloaded here.