Windle Wants To Harness Wave Energy

The nation's energy woes have put a new focus on things like wind and solar power.  But, a Bartlesville inventor says we're missing a big one.  The News On 6's Steve Berg reports it's one he's been working on for nearly 30 years.

Tom Windle got the idea when he was on vacation in Hawaii and saw 10-foot waves crashing onshore.  He figured there had to be a way to put that energy to work. 

The sun sets. The winds don't always blow.  But, the waves, says Tom Windle, are relentless.

"Wave energy is the most steady of all of the alternate energy systems.  It's predictable.  It's more powerful than wind and solar put together," said Tom Windle.

To harness the power of the waves, Windle created these floating platforms.  They work sort of like a giant car engine.  As the ocean rises and falls, they push giant pistons, which pump water into a turbine-generator, and voila, you've got electricity.

"We were actually making electricity at Galveston in '87, and people were going crazy about it, ya know, except energy was so cheap that it didn't have a chance," said Tom Windle.

In fact, the biggest obstacle to Windle's invention to this point hasn't been an engineering one, but an economic one.  He says oil was so cheap that nobody was interested in investing in alternative energy.  He says this working prototype in La Jolla, California survived three major storms with no problems.

"And we tested it out there from '90 to '95 and really got it down pretty good, but we ran out of money," said Tom Windle.

Not only can the wave machine generate electricity, Windle says salt water is more conductive to electricity and therefore, perfect for making hydrogen.  He says you could set up a wave machine around the thousands of existing offshore oil and gas platforms and use those to transport the hydrogen.

"Almost all of the platforms have natural gas lines that come to shore.  It's ready-made.  It really is," said Tom Windle.

He's tried to get the government interested without much success.

"Course that was back when oil was cheap.  I think we're going to see a different twist on it.  Wave energy is where wind power was 20 years ago, and I don't think it'll take 20 years to catch up," said Tom Windle.

There are actually several different companies looking at ways to use waves to generate electricity.  Windle, though, says that his is the only one with the added idea of producing hydrogen.

He has a meeting next week with Congressman John Sullivan's office to talk about the idea.