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Riding wave energy to gains: A TFN Smart Trading Video

Posted July 26, 2008

Move over wind! Wave energy is more reliable and cost effective.

Nick Hodge of Alternative Energy Speculator gives the low-down on the top technologies in marine energy — and which companies are set to profit from them. Watch the video now.

by Laura Cadden, Todays Financial News

Baltimore — (TFN): The search for cost effective green energy has led invention and investment in many directions, even the oil maven T. Boone Pickens is getting in on the alternative energy act predicting that ten years from now we could produce enough wind energy to allow 20 percent of the natural gas now used for electricity to be redirected as fuel for vehicles.

A lesser discussed technology is wave or marine energy. Eight hundred and fifty times denser than air, water would allow turbines to produce 40 times more power than windmills. As compared to win, water tidal currents are far more constant and can be forecast with accuracy.

To tell us where there are opportunities with this technology for investors, I’ve invited Nick Hodge of Alternative Energy Speculator.

Nick, there’s a big project going on right now in Portugal and I’ve read that the U.S. just signed on with a cooperative agreement. You’re familiar with this? Can you tell us about it?

Electricity demand is simply outstripping supply. And it’s only going to get worse… We’re already seeing blackouts and brownouts in big cities like Los Angeles and New York on hot days when everyone is using their air conditioners. The world is going to need all the sources of electricity it can get. One tiny engineering company has unlocked the secret to harnessing energy from the ocean’s waves. And the technology is so successful that they’ve already signed a power purchase agreement with of the U.S.’s largest utilities. Read the full report on the company that could bridge the gap between the world’s electricity supply and surging demand.

Nick Hodge: Sure. Basically what’s going on is Portugal has very favorable conditions for wave energy because they’re there on the end of the Iberian Peninsula.

So for the past three years Portuguese scientists have been evaluating the area, monitoring the conditions, the wave flows, the tidal flows to see what are the best technologies to deploy, to harness this wave energy and also to calculate the speeds at which the waves come and the tides go in and out.

Secretary of Energy Samuel Bodman has signed a memorandum of understanding with Manuel Pinho, the Economic Minister of Portugal, to basically collaborate on this idea of wave energy.

Laura Cadden: There are so many different variations of this technology. Is there a difference between wave and marine energy?

Nick Hodge: Wave energy is capturing the waves as they bob up and down on the surface. So there’s either a buoy tied to the bottom and as it moves up and down it captures that energy and converts into electricity via turbine.

Or you can have the sea snake as they do in Portugal, which is on the horizontal axis and as it moves it has various joints that harness the power and convert it to electricity.

Then there’s also marine current energy in which they put turbines underneath on the sea bed or on the river bed and capture the currents as they come in and out with the tides. There are a few more, but they’re way too far off in the future to discuss.

View the video here…

Laura Cadden: Before the show we were discussing the turbines under… you said the East River?

Nick Hodge: Right. In the East River in New York they actually have a system in the Roosevelt Island in which they’re powering a grocery store and a few homes while monitoring how the underwater turbines affect the local eco-system there. So hopefully that system can expand. The company to watch there is Verdant Power.

Laura Cadden: So do you believe that wave energy is actually going to prove more effective than wind?

Nick Hodge: I would say yes — with a caveat. It’s not going to be more prolific in that we’re not going to get more megawatt hours or more kilowatt hours from producing electricity with marine energy, but it’s more productive in that you can produce the same amount of electricity with less equipment.

And it’s being done in an underwater salt water atmosphere and so you have things like rust and other drawbacks to deal with.

Laura Cadden: Of all of these different techniques – they’re all really experimental at this phase. Is there one you think particularly has the most promise?

Nick Hodge: I like the two wave technologies, the sea snake and the buoy and I also like the marine current technology. Like I said, the other few technologies are a little too far off to discuss right now. So the company I’m watching here is Ocean Power Delivery who makes a buoy.

To learn more about Nick’s investment research service, Alternative Energy Speculator, you can sign up for his free e-letter. Just go to www.greenchipstocks.com.

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