Sea Power?

[jpak]

http://www.pennlive.com/business/patriotnews/index.ssf?/base/business/1185239420266560.xml&coll=1

WASHINGTON - For years, the United States has looked to the sun and the wind as renewable energy sources. But legislation moving through Congress would authorize $250 million in federal grants to develop ocean wave energy.

The measure would be the nation's first major investment in wave energy, which converts the rise and fall of ocean swells into electrical power. A related technology, tidal energy, extracts energy from the movement of the sea's tides.

Wave energy "has the potential of delivering about 10 percent of our energy, which is a huge amount," said Rep. Darlene Hooley, D-Ore., author of the bill, which received bipartisan support in the House Science Committee and was included in a pending energy bill.

Developing wave energy also has the support of the electric power industry, said Jim Owen, spokesman for Edison Electric Institute, which lobbies for investor-owned utilities. "We're looking at the full range of renewable options," he said.

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