Energy: Ocean and Power Essay

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One of the major goals in this world is to develop power in a cost effective way and through renewable energy. In order to achieve this goal, the dependency on fossil fuel must be cut so that the energy from the oceans, tides, or the wind can be used to deliver the world’s electricity requirements.
Currently, the major issue seems to be the cost of electricity, which the industries are trying to drastically reduce. In the article, “Wind and Ocean Power Generators,” the authors highly emphasize the importance of the cost of electricity, stating that the high cost of electricity causes the government to pay subsidies in order to make up the differences. Bray, Fair, and Haran state that currently the wind turbines are the most popular method to generate power. They also mention how generating power from the oceans have high potential, but at the current prototype stage the cost of electricity is rather high and therefore unfavorable. Similarly, the article “Tapping the Power of the Sea” also acknowledge the potential from the oceans. Theoretically the ocean has enough energy to supply the whole world’s demand for electricity (Tapping the Power of the Sea, 2007).
Although using the potential power of the sea is expensive, studies unveil that such energy can also be harnessed from the tides offshore. Such technologies are already in use and the authors of the article claim that underwater turbines have been installed in New York recently (Tapping the Power of the Sea, 2007). Other testing show that it is capable of powering 1,500 homes at first, later having the potential to increasing ten folds (Tapping the Power of the Sea, 2007). Currently, only a small portion of the world uses tidal wave power, although most of which are experimental. However, other major countries are interested in using the tides to generate their power, considering the financial risks involved diminish over time.
Generating power from the wind is something that has a huge potential since it is mostly developed and experimented with. One of the challenges faced for using wind energy is that each turbine needs to be modified upon the wind’s general speed and course “Wind and Ocean Power Generators.” The other, most obvious challenge is the sheer cost of installing and
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