Saturday, July 07, 2012

Edinburgh company leads in wave energy

Aquamarine Power, an Edinburgh based wave energy company, are leading the way in developing energy from waves.

They recently received the Renewables UK award for innovation in a product or process top take forward the renewables agenda. 

(Renewables UK is an industry body to promote renewables which was the subject of a recent post). 

I will monitor the company's progress with interest.

2 comments:

  1. Cameron, even if wave energy were ever going to be viable, the way Scotland has gone about it is certain to be a failure and shows absolutely no understanding of the factors that led Danish wind to be a success. Indeed, they couldn't have misread the Danish success story more.

    The key was that established agricultural companies (with experience in the harsh reality of cost-critical machinery) were financed indirectly through customers by loans to farmers and small-holders who were hard nosed, cost-conscious, down-to-earth, "don't give me carp about it worked in the factory" kinds of people.

    The other key, was that government money added to money spent by individuals and it all started very small, so lots of machines were produced so that they rapidly came down the cost/reliability curve.

    Instead Scotland has got a bunch of academic-led companies producing one-off machines and a right bunch of idiots at Scottish Enterprise (should I say star-ship ...) who finance the biggest most complex machines and then wonder why they don't work. ... no, I tell a lie, they don't care why they don't work. They do work ... for the photoshoot to get the next bit of funding.
    They probably don't even know that they don't work in the way you or I would mean it. Because as far as they are concerned, all they are seeking is the next bigger fancier machine to get the next "green" (naive) bit of funding.

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  2. I see you feel strongly!

    I'm not well up on wave power and I posted on this just to help me monitor the progress of this company (it's an Edinburgh climate blog).

    I appreciate your views and will have them in mind as things progress.

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