Energy Ocean 2005, a brief review

The Energy Ocean 2005 conference was held in April in Washington D.C., and Richard Meyer, the president at the Ocean Energy Council has written a brief review of the conference.

by Richard Meyer, 31 May 2005

Attendance was about the same as the previous year’s conference, with representatives of the offshore industry, federal and state agencies, power generating firms, universities, financial organizations and others, from over 12 countries.

The keynote speaker, Spencer Abrahim, Secretary of Energy until he left the Bush administration in February, was upbeat and supportive of the development of ocean energy. He mentioned the February, 2005 study by the Edison Power Research Institute (EPRI) on ocean energy four times, as a prime resource and repeatedly noted that it will serve as a great aid in seeking federal, industry and financial support. He said it was “critical to get congressional support” and that “the ocean energy industry has matured over the past few decades, and the technologies are becoming commercially viable at a time when our nation seeks greater energy independence. The time is right”. Moreover, the Secretary laid out a general game plan for those us advocating the implementation of ocean energy.

Towards the goal of influencing the U.S. Congress, there are various lobbying activities underway to assure the inclusion of ocean energy in the Energy Bill now pending in the Senate. While the Ocean Energy Council (OEC) can do a limited amount of lobbying, another group has been formed, the Ocean Renewable Energy Coalition (OREC), with lobbying as its principal focus. The principals of OREC are located in the Washington, DC area.

While having congressional support is obviously useful, I reminded the attendees that the original OEC, over 20 years ago, concentrated all of its efforts on lobbying, succeeded in having 2 major OTEC bills signed into law, only to have ‘the plug pulled’ by a new administration which dissolved all renewable energy support. As I pointed out in my presentation, the goal of OEC is education, not only of Congress, but the public, industry, power generating firms, and the financial world. As can be seen by reviewing the abstracts of the technical sessions, many unique advances in various forms of energy from the ocean were presented, along with legal and financial presentations.

Also outlined were current ocean energy projects including two US offshore windfarms, two turbine/current projects and several wave installations. Representatives from Europe and Australia illustrated that the US is far behind in implementation of ocean energy. As an example, on May 19th Ocean Power Delivery has just announced a contract with Portugal to proceed with a wavefarm.

With oil prices high, an Energy Bill wending its way through Congress, and wider and wider implementation of various forms of ocean energy actually going ahead – these are not vague rumors – Energy Ocean 2005 was a big step forward toward further advancement of ocean energy.

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