Marine Technology Used To Create Renewable Energy?

NEW YORK, Nov. 4, 2010 /PRNewswire/ -- Reportlinker.com announces that a new market research report is available in its catalogue:
The Future of Marine Technologies: Technology developments, key costs and the future outlook

http://www.reportlinker.com/p0185312/The-Future-of-Marine-Technologies-Technology-developments-key-costs-and-the-future-outlook.html

Many of the world's potential renewable energy resources are being exploited today to generate electricity. The main exception is marine energy, the energy contained in various forms in the world's seas and oceans. This situation looks set to change as the challenge of combating global warming inspires a renewed search for methods to extract marine energy from our seas. Wave power and systems that can exploit the movement of water generated by the tides are attracting the most attention but methods for using the warm seas in the tropics to produce electricity and even the attempts to extract energy released when salt and fresh water mix are now coming under the gaze of scientists and technicians too. Some of the resulting technologies remain far from commercial implementation but several are now close to commercialization.

With all but tidal barrage power plants still in an early stage of development and no commercial plants of any other type in operation, assessing the economics of marine power generation technologies today depends on projections based on early prototypes of early demonstration units. Today these are generally more costly than alternative forms of power generation, both conventional and renewable. However the example of the wind power market shows that costs can fall dramatically as both technology improves and economies of scale are realized. Some early predictions suggest that some marine technologies might be cheaper than wind power but the level of uncertainty in such predictions is high.

Key features of this report

• Analysis of marine technologies concepts and components.

• Assessment of marine technologies power plant market.

• Insight relating to the most innovative technologies and potential areas of opportunity for manufacturers.

• Examination of the key technology introductions and innovations.



Scope of this report

• Realize up to date competitive intelligence through a comprehensive review of marine technologies concepts in electricity power generation markets.

• Assess the emerging trends in marine technologies – including ocean thermal energy conversion, wave power generation and tidal stream technologies, tidal barrage power plants, salinity gradient power generation.

• Identify which key trends will offer the greatest growth potential and learn which technology trends are likely to allow greater market impact.

• Compare how manufacturers are developing new marine technologies



Key Market Issues

• Environmental requirements:- The volume of fossil fuels burnt for power and heat generation have continually grown in line with economic, infrastructure and population growth. The resulting growth of carbon dioxide emissions globally has been linked to global warming and thereon climate change. Political, environmentalist and consumer pressures to lower carbon emissions is creating a path for lower carbon emitting power generation technologies.

• Ocean energy resources:- The energy that can be derived from the world's oceans and converted into electrical power comes from a number of different sources. These include daily tidal motions, the energy contained in waves, a variety of ocean and sea currents and by exploitation of both thermal and salinity gradients where these exist. Estimates for the amount of power that can be extracted from the oceans depend on assumptions about the energy content of the particular source being exploited as well as the efficiency of extraction of energy that can be achieved by an energy converter.

• Economics of clean thermal technologies:- With all but tidal barrage power plants still in an early stage of development and no commercial plants of any other type in operation, assessing the economics of marine power generation technologies today depends on projections based on early prototypes of early demonstration units.


Key findings from this report

• New types of marine power generation technologies are evolving that are designed to use freely available resources and collect energy outputting low level pollutant emissions.

• Wave power is again potentially the largest resource, with the potential to provide between 1,000GW and 10,000GW of generating capacity.

• The strongest winds and the largest waves are generally found between 30º and 60º of latitude.

• Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion technologies have among the lowest of all life cycle carbon emissions.

• Certain forms of marine technology generation are already cost competitive with alternative forms of energy generation.
Key questions answered
• What are the drivers shaping and influencing marine technology development in the electricity industry?
• What are the life cycle carbon emissions of the various marine technologies?
• What is marine technology power generation going to cost?
• Which marine technology types will be the winners and which the losers in terms power generated, cost and viability?