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Posts Tagged ‘Wave Energy Blogger’

Editor’s Note: More current information at Re-examine Kent State Now; The Truth is in the Tape calling for immediate exploration of the Strubbe Tape to uncover the truth at Kent State. Also, more writing from Laurel Krause & Delaney Brown on Kent State & Allison Krause, The Aftermath of Loss, Becoming Galvanized.
MendoCoastCurrent, May 6, [...]

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MendoCoastCurrent, May 20, 2009
At this core energy technology incubator, energy policy is created as renewable energy technologies and science move swiftly from white boards and white papers to testing, refinement and implementation.
The Vision
Mendocino Energy is located on the Mendocino coast, three plus hours north of San Francisco/Silicon Valley. On the waterfront of Fort Bragg, utilizing [...]

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MendoCoastCurrent, April 23, 2009
In Octoberr 2008 Grays Harbor Ocean Energy applied for seven Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) preliminary permits for projects located in the Atlantic Ocean about 12 to 25 miles offshore off the coasts of New York, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island, and in the Pacific Ocean about 5 to 30 miles off the coasts [...]

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MendoCoastCurrent, March 25, 2009

Aquamarine Power has signed a $2.7 million contract with Fugro Seacore to install their wave energy generator, the Oyster, at the European Marine Energy Center.
Aquamarine’s Oyster converter is designed for waters that are from 26-52 feet deep with anticipated installation 550 yards offshore in the second half of 2009.  The Oyster has [...]

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MendoCoastCurrent, March 20, 2009
Yesterday the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), led by Chairman Jon Wellinghoff, filed this FERC Smart Grid Policy Statement introducing a proposed Smart Grid, interoperability standards with an interim period rate plan.  FERC has invited comments by May 1, 2009. 
FERC offered this summary:
This proposed policy statement and action plan provides guidance to inform [...]

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Editor’s Note:  On September 21, 2009 FERC Commissioner Suedeen Kelly declined a nomination to serve a second term on the panel. Kelly, a Democratic commissioner nominated by President Obama, said she was leaving her post for the private sector.  A FERC spokeswoman said Kelly would remain in her seat until Congress adjourns later this year.
In [...]

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MendoCoastCurrent, March 11, 2009
Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar announced today that he has just signed his first order establishing renewable energy generation as the top priority of the Department of the Interior. Following President Obama’s lead in steering the United States into this new energy path, he said this agenda would create jobs and grow [...]

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MendoCoastCurrent, February 14, 2009
Acting Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) Chairman Jon Wellinghoff recently published Facilitating Hydrokinetic Energy Development Through Regulatory Innovation. 
Consider it required reading as a backgrounder on US wave energy policy development, FERC’s position on the MMS in renewables and FERC’s perceived role as a government agency in renewable energy, specifically marine energy, development.
Missing from this key [...]

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MendoCoastCurrent from Platts Energy Podium, February 12, 2009
The recently approved Economic Stimulus Plan includes expanding the US electric transmission grid and this may be the just the start of what will be a costly effort to improve reliability and deliver renewable energy to consumers from remote locations, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) Acting Chairman Jon [...]

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MaritimeJournal.com, February 12, 2009
Edinburgh-based Pelamis Wave Power has won an order from UK renewable energy generator E.On for the next generation Pelamis Wave Energy Converter, known as the P2.
The P2 will be built at the Pelamis Leith Docks facility and trialed at the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) in Orkney. This is the first time a [...]

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CHRISTOPHER RUSSELL, The Advertiser, February 11, 2009
Wave energy company Carnegie Corporation has been licensed by the Australian state government to explore the seabed off the southeast coast. It is the first license issued in South Australia for a company to search for suitable sites for wave-harnessing technology.
Carnegie Corporation, which has demonstration wave energy projects operating in [...]

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MendoCoastCurrent, February 10, 2009
E.On is moving forward to install and test a single wave device to be fully operational in 2010. Based around a single 750kW Pelamis P2 device that is currently being built in Edinburgh, it will be installed and tested at the European Marine Energy Centre in Orkney.  
The first year of technology [...]

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DAVID FOGARTY, Reuters Climate Change Correspondent, February 5, 2009
For millennia, Australia’s rugged southern coast has been carved by the relentless action of waves crashing ashore.
The same wave energy could soon be harnessed to power towns and cities and trim Australia’s carbon emissions.
“Waves are already concentrated solar energy,” says Michael Ottaviano, who leads a Western Australian [...]

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SUSAN CHAMBERS, The World, February 4, 2009
Coos Bay, Oregon — The jobs are coming, so Ocean Power Technologies insists.
OPT spokesman Len Bergstein said Monday the company wants to get stimulus funds from the federal government.
“We have a strong interest in presenting a project that would be jobs-ready right now,” Bergstein said.
OPT wants to get a [...]

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SUSAN CHAMBERS, The World, February 3, 2009
Coos Bay — The announcement came as a surprise to everyone.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s Thursday order issuing a preliminary permit for a 200- to 400-buoy wave energy project off of Newport shocked Ocean Power Technologies leaders as well as the public.
“It’s a project, a site that is not [...]

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MendoCoastCurrent, January 31, 2009
On January 26, 2009, Lockheed Martin and Ocean Power Technologies agreed to work together to develop a commercial-scale wave energy project off the coasts of Oregon or California.
OPT is providing their expertise in project and site development as they build the plant’s power take-off and control systems with their PowerBuoy for electricity [...]

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Editors Note:  On May 11, 2009, PG&E pulled-out of Mendocino WaveConnect, read it here: http://tinyurl.com/qwlbg6 . The remains of the $6M are now solely allocated to Humboldt WaveConnect.
MendoCoastCurrent, January 29, 2009
PG&E caught a major renewable energy wave today as the California Public Utilities Commission approved $4.8 million in funding their centerpiece wave energy [...]

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Please Take Action By MONDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 2009 before 2:00 pm!
MendoCoastCurrent, January 29, 2009
Just a couple of weeks ago, Ann Miles, Director of Hydropower Licensing at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission visited the Mendocino coast.  The centerpiece of her presentation on January 13, 2009 at Fort Bragg Town Hall was to explain the FERC Hydokinetic [...]

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MendoCoastCurrent, January 29, 2009
As the Monday, February 9, 2009 before 2 p.m. deadline for filing FERC Motion to Intervene papers regarding the Green Wave LLC wave energy preliminary permit off the Mendocino village coast approaches, locals, the City of Fort Bragg and fishing organization are participating and electronically filing their views with FERC.
Here’s the excellent [...]

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MendoCoastCurrent, January 17, 2009
Here’s the post from MendoCoastCurrent in the Citizen’s Briefing Book at President-elect Barack Obama’s change.gov site:
Renewable Energy Development (RED) federal task force
Immediately establish and staff a Renewable Energy Development (RED) federal task force chartered with exploring and fast-tracking the development, exploration and commercialization of environmentally-sensitive renewable energy solutions in solar, wind, wave, green-ag, et [...]

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MendoCoastCurrent, January 17, 2009
Today at the Citizen’s Briefing Book at President-elect Barack Obama’s change.gov site, I shared this:
Renewable Energy Development (RED) federal task force
Immediately establish and staff a Renewable Energy Development (RED) federal task force chartered with exploring and fast-tracking the development, exploration and commercialization of environmentally-sensitive renewable energy solutions in solar, wind, wave, green-ag, [...]

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MendoCoastCurrent, January 8, 2009
Key President-elect Barack Obama renewable energy quotes from his January 8, 2009 speech to the U.S. Congress and citizens, on his top economic priorities as he takes office.
“. . .the first question that each of us asks isn’t ‘what’s good for me?’ but ‘what’s good for the country my children will inherit?”
On [...]

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MendoCoastCurrent, January 7, 2009
Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Chairman Joseph T. Kelliher today issued the following statement:
Today I announce my intention to step down as chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), effective January 20, 2009. Although my term as commissioner does not end until 2012, I will also immediately begin to recuse myself from [...]

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ALOK JHA, Guardian UK, January 5, 2009
Propellers on ships have been tried and tested for centuries in the rough and unforgiving environment of the sea: now this long-proven technology will be used in reverse to harness clean energy from the UK’s powerful tides.
The tides that surge around the UK’s coasts could provide up to a [...]

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Excerpts from article by FRANK HARTZELL, The Mendocino Beacon, December 24, 2008
On January 13, 2009, from 5-7p.m. at Fort Bragg Town Hall, a “top official from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) will appear to explain the agency’s strategy on developing what it calls “hydrokinetic” power as an alterative energy source.
Ann F. Miles, FERC’s director [...]

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Science Daily, December 20, 2008
MIT researchers are working with Portuguese colleagues to design a pilot-scale device that will capture significantly more of the energy in ocean waves than existing systems, and use it to power an electricity-generating turbine.
Wave energy is a large, widespread renewable resource that is environmentally benign and readily scalable. In some locations [...]

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CYNTHIA THIELEN, The Star Bulletin, December 21, 2008
Rep. Cynthia Thielen represents the 50th District (Kailua-Kaneohe Bay) in the State House
An unusual consortium comprised of large utilities, environmental groups, energy think tanks and ocean energy developers has just written to President-elect Barack Obama about the tremendous potential of wave energy and the role it can play [...]

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JOHN DRISCOLL, The Times-Standard, December 15, 2008
A white paper commissioned by the state of California says that tapping the ocean for power should be done carefully.
The report for the California Energy Commission and the Ocean Protection Council looked at the possible socio-economic and environmental effects of the infant industry, including what it might mean for [...]

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Excerpts from FRANK HARTZELL’s article at the Mendocino Beacon, December 11, 2008
On December 9, 2008  “the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) granted a Southern California development company exclusive rights to 17 square miles off the town of Mendocino for a wave energy study.
GreenWave LLC’s intent is to eventually produce a 100 megawatt wave energy power [...]

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MendoCoastCurrent, December 9, 2008
DONG Energy and Wind Estate A/S opened the second stage of Overgård wind farm on December 2, 2008. With the construction of 10 new wind turbines next to 20 existing turbines, Overgård will now be Denmark’s largest onshore wind farm.
The wind farm, situated approx. 25 km northwest of Randers in East Jutland, [...]

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MendoCoastCurrent, December 8, 2008
In late October 2008 Michigan-based Cascade Engineering launched the Swift Wind Turbine in North America.
“With rising energy costs and increased environmental consciousness, we’ve seen more people turning to small wind. For the past several months, we’ve been inundated with requests for the Swift before we’ve even launched the product” said Michael Ford, [...]

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Guardian.co.uk, December 3, 2008
Way back in Napoleonic Paris, a Monsieur Girard had a novel idea about energy: power from the sea. In 1799, Girard obtained a patent for a machine he and his son had designed to mechanically capture the energy in ocean waves. Wave power could be used, they figured, to run pumps and [...]

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MendoCoastCurrent, November 21, 2008
San Francisco — Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) announced that it has entered into a long-term agreement with Hatchet Ridge Wind LLC, a subsidiary of Babcock & Brown, to purchase up to 103 megawatts (MW) of wind energy. The project will generate up to 303 gigawatt-hours of renewable energy annually. This [...]

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MendoCoastCurrent, November 18, 2007
Developing Wave Energy in Coastal California: Potential Socio-Economic and Environmental Effects, authored by a team of scientists from H.T. Harvey and Associates, UC Davis Bodega Marine Laboratory, UC Santa Cruz, the Farallon Institute for Advanced Ecosystem Research, Planwest Partners and Humboldt State University, and jointly funded by the California Ocean Protection Council and the California [...]

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MendoCoastCurrent, November 9, 2008
MendoCoastCurrent applauds Frank Hartzell’s reporting in the Fort Bragg Advocate-News and the Mendocino Beacon, and in winning reporting awards from the California Newspaper Publishers Association’s Better Newspapers Contest for work published in 2007. The awards were recently announced at CNPA’s annual awards luncheon in late October 2008.
Reporter Frank Hartzell’s on-going, in-depth and [...]

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MendoCoastCurrent, October 13, 2008
A new prototype of a wave energy device being developed by Oregon State University and Columbia Power Technologies was successfully tested last month in the ocean off Newport, Oregon, providing valuable data and moving the research program closer to commercialization.
In a $1 million research effort during the past year, 18 different “direct [...]

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MATT NAUMAN, San Jose Mercury News, October 27, 2008
The California Public Utilities Commission rejected a Pacific Gas & Electric contract for wave energy, saying the utility was going to pay too much for a technology that’s still largely experimental.
Last December, PG&E said it would be the first utility in the nation to get energy from [...]

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MendoCoastCurrent, October 16, 2008
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) claimed that it has jurisdiction over hydroelectric projects located on the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS), pointing to laws that define its role.
FERC addressed the jurisdictional question, raised by the U.S. Department of the Interior, Mineral Management Service (MMS), in the context of a rehearing order on [...]

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Excerpts from FRANK HARTZELL’s article in the Fort Bragg Advocate-News, September 18, 2008
PG&E “expects to be granted $1.2 million this week by the U.S. Department of Energy to study wave energy off Fort Bragg and Eureka” and is seeking “the new money earlier this summer to move its local wave energy study under a Federal [...]

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MendoCoastCurrent, September 9, 2008
Fort Bragg, California City Council has filed a lawsuit against the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) in the Washington D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Concerns escalated last August when FERC denied Fort Bragg’s second request for a rehearing on FERC’s national licensing policies for wave energy or hydrokinetic energy projects. The community stakeholders, [...]

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MendoCoastCurrent, September 9, 2008
Saying the nation’s energy situation has dramatically changed in the past year, Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne today jumpstarted the development of a new oil and natural gas leasing program for the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf.  The action could give the next administration a two-year head start in expanding energy production [...]

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Excerpts from FRANK HARTZELL’s article at the Mendocino Beacon, September 4, 2008
PG&E decided last week not to be the national test case for the Minerals Management Service’s wave energy program.
Just two weeks earlier, the utility officially filed paperwork to pursue those same far offshore wave energy leases. None of the filings have yet been provided [...]

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GABE MELINE, Bohemia.com, September 3, 2008
While presidential candidates call for alternative forms of energy and “sustainable” is the word of the year, the idea of ocean-wave buoys along the Sonoma and Marin coast continues to attract attention as a potentially viable form of energy.
Though no firm proposal is in place, the wheels have been turning [...]

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MendoCoastCurrent, September 4, 2008
The American Wind Energy Association released today that the U.S. wind industry has surpassed the 20,000-megawatt (MW) installed capacity milestone, achieving in two years what had previously taken more than two decades (the 10,000-MW mark was reached in 2006).  Wind now provides 20,152 MW of electricity generating capacity in the U.S., producing [...]

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MendoCoastCurrent, August 22, 2008
Raser Technologies joined with New Mexico governor Bill Richardson, former United States Secretary of Energy, to announce the beginning of the construction phase of the first commercial geothermal power project in New Mexico. Raser Chairman Kraig Higginson introduced Raser’s geothermal power project at Lightning Dock near Animas, New Mexico along with its [...]

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MendoCoastCurent, August 12, 2008
Last Friday the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) released its latest denial for a rehearing on the Mendocino Wave Energy project on the Northern California coast.
The denied Petitioners include Fishermen Interested in Safe Hydrokinetics (FISH) with Attorney Elizabeth Mitchell, Mendocino County, Fort Bragg, Lincoln County in Oregon and others representing concerned citizens, [...]

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MADDALENA JACKSON with MendoCoastCurrent edit, The Sacramento Bee, August 11, 2008
Oil companies, some politicians and commuters paying $4 for a gallon of gas might look at California’s coast and think of crude oil pooled below the sea floor.
California’s North Coast, however, holds promise of another energy bounty.
In less time than it would take to fire [...]

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GreenCarCongress.com, July 26, 2008
The US Minerals Management Service (MMS) is proceeding with the consultation and analyses necessary to move toward the issuance of limited leases under its interim policy for authorizing alternative energy data collection and technology testing activities on the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS).
MMS announced its interim policy in November 2007 to jumpstart basic [...]

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JOHN DRISCOLL, The Times-Standard, July 24, 2008
The Pacific Gas and Electric Co. has cleared another hurdle toward developing wave energy projects off the Humboldt and Mendocino county coasts.
Recently the U.S. Minerals Management Service announced that it would go forward with analyzing limited leases for alternative energy projects on the outer continental shelf. It follows a [...]

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MendoCoastCurrent, August 6, 2008
In humanity’s more than 100,000 year history, we have evolved from vulnerable creatures clawing sustenance from Earth to a sophisticated global society manipulating every inch of it. In short, we have become the dominant animal. Why, then, are we creating a world that threatens our own species? What can we do to [...]

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DAVID R. BAKER, The San Francisco Chronicle, July 31, 2008
The U.S. Interior Department ratcheted up the pressure on Congress Wednesday to open more of the country’s coastline to offshore oil drilling, a move petroleum companies have sought for decades.
Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne said his department will lay the groundwork for selling undersea oil-drilling leases on [...]

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MendoCoastCurrent, July 9, 2008
ACT NOW! – ‘MMS Rulemaking’ Public Review & Comments Accepted Thru September 8, 2008
The U.S. Department of the Interior’s Minerals Management Service (MMS) has published a proposed rule in the Federal Register that will regulate alternative energy production activities and alternate uses of existing facilities on the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS). The [...]

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MendoCoastCurrent, July 8, 2008

Act Now! Related ‘MMS Rulemaking’ Public Review & Comments Accepted Thru September 8, 2008
WASHINGTON, DC – The Minerals Management Service (MMS) announced today that it is proceeding with the consultation and analyses necessary to move toward the issuance of limited leases under its interim policy for authorizing alternative energy data collection [...]

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MendoCoastCurrent, July 9, 2008
Efforts to harness the energy potential of Earth’s ocean winds could soon gain an important new tool: global satellite maps from NASA. Scientists have been creating maps using nearly a decade of data from NASA’s QuikSCAT satellite that reveal ocean areas where winds could produce energy.
The new maps have many potential uses [...]

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MendoCoastCurrent, July 23, 2008
If the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities agrees next month to build offshore wind turbines, then projects covering as much as 40 square miles of the Atlantic Ocean could be built locally over the next several years.
Plans on file in the state BPU office here show most of the proposals favor [...]

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