Wave Energy Converters

Photo by James Sturz

I’ve been reading William Finnegan’s Barbarian Days recently, his 2015 memoir about surfing in California, Hawaii, the South Pacific, and around the world. Consider the wave: a growing, surging, crashing and collapsing wall of roaming and marauding energy that it takes nerves, strength, flexibility, humility and technique—and the willingness to endure a little risk and pain—to harness, if only for a few exhilarating and mesmerizing seconds. In Hawaii, where Finnegan was partly raised, harnessing the waves is on many people's minds, but not only those who ride them on boards.

Hydropower goes back at least as far as ancient Greece and China, when paddle wheels on rivers milled grain. Talk about renewable energy today, and most people immediately think of wind and sun, although until 2019 hydropower was the largest source of renewable energy in the U.S. Now, in Hawaii, where waves play an outsized role in daily conversations, there’s talk about building "wave energy converters” to turn those omnipresent and omnipotent forces into usable power. Not just for surfing, but—I suppose—for surfing the Internet, and maybe even for saving the planet, too.

Take a look at what Hawaii is doing, or watch the video below for a Vice story about research along the Oregon coast.