More Efforts to Promote Wave Energy in the United States

In this recent article
Wave of the future?, Doreen Leggett, Cape Cod Online (3/11/05)gives an update on efforts to conduct feasibility studies for wave energy plants on the East Coast. The article begins with a proposal, discussed in a recently issued EPRI Report for a wave energy project off Wellfleet, Massachusetts that would provide power for homes on the Outer Cape. The article continues:

Roger Bedard, ocean energy program manger for California-based EPRI, has been visiting the East Coast to generate support for wave and tidal energy. He is touting feasibility studies that show wave energy facilities - in spots like off Wellfleet - can actually be cheaper than wind if the technology is perfected.
Bedard has been involved in renewable energy for 25 years, and in the last year and a half has seen an increase in the possibilities for wave energy.
"It seems to me that the stars were aligned to begin a wave energy project in this country," Bedard said. He explained that the West Coast has better waves, but anywhere on the Lower Cape the wave energy resource is good, not so much on the Upper Cape.

The article also mentions that permitting problems have mired other the progress of a demonstration wave energy project off the coast of Rhode Island. A group, the Offshore Wind Energy Collaborative (OWEC) has been formed which intends to deal with some of the regulatory issues complicating wave and tidal development.