Enthusiastic audience does the wave (power, that is.)

Dr. Annette von Jouanne, Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Oregon State University, was the only person to receive a standing ovation for her presentation in last Saturday's "Oregon's Ocean: It's Perils and Possibilities" conference in Florence. She proved a highly energetic and entertaining speaker as she described the potential opportunities the generation of electricity by ocean wave energy conversion may hold for Oregon.

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Dr. von Jouanne told the approximately 200 people at the gathering that if just 0.2 percent of the Pacific Ocean's energy could be harnessed - energy from tides, currents, temperature differences, even salt differences - "we could power the world with it." And, bringing it back home, she said "just 10 square miles of ocean off the Oregon coast could power the whole state."

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Oregon could be a leader in the development of ocean wave-based power, she said, for several reasons. One is there is a virtually perfect site for a test facility on the Oregon coast at Gardiner. As it happens, the International Paper mill that was closed several years ago in that town is right on the coast, offers a pre-built transformer station and a building for monitoring and control equipment, and even has a now-unused pipeline extending well out into the ocean. That pipe could become the conduit through which electrical power lines link an array of ocean wave generators to the land - and from there, Oregon's electric grid.

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The federal NREL, she said, "does not want America, in the future, to be buying ocean wave turbines from Denmark the way we are buying wind turbines in Denmark, even though we invented a lot of the technology here."