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The global wave power generation resource in populated coastal areas is estimated (in IPCC report 4 p. 280), to 500 GW installed capacity, which leads to ~ 1100 TWh of green electricity per year. A huge potential! An estimated 40% (440 TWh/yr) of this energy is economically viable. Translated to DEXAWAVE Converters, it comes to 250.000 installed DEXAWAVE converters globally. In other words, there is a huge market for wave energy, providing competitive prices and high stability demands can be met.
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The electricity is produced from swells 6 hours before the wind picks up, and up to 12 hours after the wind has died. This makes wave energy in general a good supplement to wind turbines, in the goal to meet higher coverage of renewable CO2 free energy.
Industrialised countries with high energy demands (like Denmark) tend to saturate with wind power at about 15% coverage. After that the landscape is cluttered with windturbines, and further development is limited by environmental factors like noise, landscape disruption and safety. In Denmark there has hardly been a new wind turbine erections during the last 3 years, due to landscape saturation. Wave power on the other hand is undeveloped, and since locations on the sea are uncritical (does not have to be on selected exposed hills like wind turbines), there is plenty of ocean real estate to install the projected wave power plants. In case ship routes, fishing grounds or environmental concerns demand changes in the future, the DEXAWAVE converter can be moved to other location without problems.
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Wave energy is the economically most viable alternative to other green energy production, and on level with wind power. Wave energy can take Denmark from 16 to 30% coverage by renewables, without wrecking the landscape with thousands of new wind turbines. Other countries more exposed to wave power like Portugal, Australia, New Zealand, India, USA, Brazil, Chile, Norway, UK, Canada, Japan, and most every island community in the world, can achieve 100% coverage with wave power.
Regardless of CO2, the reserves of oil, coal and natural gas will be exhausted at some point in the future. Whether it will happen in 100 or 200 years is uncertain. But at the time when it happens, it is imparative to have a replacement technology ready to go in production. 100 - 200 years is not deep future, but eminent planning future. As oil excavation moves to new and less accessible areas of the world, production costs will rise accordingly, and this will lead to inevitable price increase of fossile fuels in the near future. Making renewable energy - like wave energy - a more and more attractive solution.
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