Tidal power: tapping Alaska's oceans and rivers for energy.

• Author: Swagel, Will
• Position: SPECIAL SECTION: BUILDING ALASKA

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"I met (Sen.) Lisa Murkowski and told her she represented the 'Ocean Energy State.'" -Roger Bedard, Ocean Energy Leader, Electric Power Research Institute

Alaska has more coastline than all the Lower 48 states combined and the amount of tidal energy available along that coast is even more superlative. In Alaska, you'll find 95 percent of the opportunities for tidal energy development in the United States. Alaska also contains half of the nation's potential for harvesting energy from ocean waves. In terms of river instream resources, the power contained in the flows of the Yukon, Kuskokwim, Tanana and other major Alaska rivers is now being assessed, but is expected to be impressive.

DOING THE WAVES IN ALASKA

It's easy to get excited when you hear statistics like these from Roger Bedard: he co-wrote the research paper that sparked today's interest in Alaska's ocean energy resources. Bedard is the Ocean Energy Leader for the Electric Power Research Institute, the industry's think and research tank, located in California's Silicon Valley.

Several years ago, Bedard and his group cataloged tidal and wave resources in Alaska, along with a few other states (the information is available to the public at www.epri.com). Since then, he has been described as an optimist about the potential of ocean energy in general and Alaska ocean energy in particular.

"I met (Sen.) Lisa Murkowski and told her she represented the 'Ocean Energy State,'" he said.

Bedard pointed out that the North American site with the single-largest tidal-energy potential is not at Minas Passage at Canada's Bay of Fundy, with its famous 50-plus-foot tides, but at North Inian Pass just outside the entrance to Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve. The swift, deep currents of the 8-mile-wide pass are expected to contain 1,600 megawatts (MW) of potential energy, although it is not known how much of that power could be extracted.

Alaska's best-known tidal energy resource is in Knik Arm, Cook Inlet, with about 120 MW of annual aver age kinetic power. While only 17MW of average power are considered to be extractable, that's enough for several companies to plan projects to harvest that power and sell it to the Anchorage grid.

Overall, Alaska's waves, tides and rivers have the potential to generate about 5 percent of the United States' electrical needs, said Bedard. Well, not exactly over all. Bedard said EPRI's report does not include the Bering Sea or any of the...