Buffeted by waves as high as 10 meters (32 feet) in China's Yellow Sea about 30 kilometers off the coast of Shandong province, two circular rafts carrying neat rows of solar panels began generating electricity late last year, a crucial step toward a new breakthrough for clean energy.
Most of the electricity in China comes from coal, which accounted for 62% of the electricity generation mix in 2021.
As of 2022, global marine energy capacity amounted to 524 megawatts. From that, 256 megawatts were reported in South Korea and 211 megawatts were in France. By comparison, the Netherlands and Russia had a marine energy capacity of two megawatts each.
In May 2022, China's first combined tidal and solar power station started feeding electricity to the grid, and the media waxed lyrical: “The sun and moon work together to generate power both above and below the waves.” This is a new model for power generation in China and marks an important step forward for integrated ...
Tide and wave power
And its potential is huge: wave energy could generate thousands of terawatt hours, and tidal energy hundreds of terawatt hours, Mr Lehner explained. Canada, the US, South Korea, Indonesia, China and some European countries are investing in tidal and wave energy.
High upfront costs of building plants, expenses associated with maintaining machinery that can survive corrosive seawater, and the pricey engineering work that goes into them make up a significant portion of that cost discrepancy.
Chile is the country with the highest wave energy potential in the world.
Like other advanced maritime nations, Japan is exploring various ways of harnessing energy from the sea, including tidal and wave power and ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC), which exploits the difference in temperature between the surface and the deep ocean.
Only power plants and towns near the ocean will benefit directly from it. Because of its source, wave energy is not a viable power source for everyone. Landlocked nations and cities far from the sea have to find alternate sources of power, so wave energy is not the clean energy solution for everyone.
In 2021, China set a goal for renewable capacity — including wind, solar, hydro, and nuclear power — to exceed fossil fuel capacity by 2025, a target that it has hit two years ahead of schedule, Reuters reports. Renewable sources, as China defines them, now make up 50.9 percent of the country's power capacity.
10 countries pollute the world's oceans with plastic the most: the Philippines, India, Malaysia, China, Indonesia, Myanmar, Vietnam, Bangladesh, Thailand and Brazil. The paradox is that these countries do not consume the most plastic, but at the same time, they lack a quality waste management system.
The same report shows the largest producer of “clean” energy is Norway, where 99% of the energy produced comes from renewable sources.
Locations with the most potential for wave power include the western seaboard of Europe, the northern coast of the UK, and the Pacific coastlines of North and South America, Southern Africa, Australia, and New Zealand.
Fueling China's Rise
China's industrial sector accounts for two-thirds of the country's total energy consumption. In particular, manufacturing drives a large proportion of China's energy demand, with much of the energy coming from burning coal.
China is the world's largest consumer of electricity, using over 5.934 trillion kWh of energy annually. China accounts for almost one-quarter of global energy consumption.
Though extreme weather is the direct cause of the electricity shortage, China faces long-term challenges. China's carbon emissions continue to rise as a leading economic and manufacturing hub with a population of 1.4 billion. The country is the world's biggest polluter, making it critical to global climate goals.
The main environmental risks of ocean energy technologies include collision of marine life with underwater turbines, creation of underwater sound, and habitat changes. More research is needed to assess the long-term effect of ocean energy technologies on the environment and marine wildlife.
Wave energy is also considered a clean energy source because it does not produce harmful pollutants or greenhouse gas emissions during the generation of electricity.
Conversely, the presence of wave-energy equipment might cause marine species to alter migration patterns or behavior to avoid interaction. Electromagnetic fields associated with wave-energy equipment could affect feeding and orientation of marine species, especially salmon, crab, sturgeon, sharks, and rays.
Wave power plants can harvest the energy in the up and down motion of waves and convert it into electricity. Wave energy is strongest where there are trade winds and ocean swells. In Australia, our wave energy resources are greatest along the southern coastline.
Japan depends largely on fossil fuels such as oil, coal and liquefied natural gas (LNG), most of which are imported from overseas. Having experienced oil crises in the 1970s, Japan reduced its dependency on fossil fuels to a certain extent.
Wave energy is another form of renewable energy that can be used as an alternative to traditional energy from fossil fuels – finite resources that release harmful carbon emissions into the air when harnessed for energy.
Global solar PV capacity is set to almost triple over the 2022-2027 period, surpassing coal and becoming the largest source of power capacity in the world.
Wind and solar power are the fastest-growing sources of energy, generating a 10% of the world's energy in 2021, according to a newly published climate report. Additionally, clean energy sources accounted for 38% of the world's total power supply last year, surpassing coal by 2%.
China- 392 GW
China's solar prowess is staggering. With a whopping 392 GW, the country is the largest producer of solar energy in the world. In the first six months of 2022, the nation has deployed more than 30.88 GW of Solar PV systems. Moreover, it has set goals to install 108 GW of solar power this year.