Oh buoy, wax your board for wave power

Age
Tuesday 30/9/2008 Page: 4

THE market loves a "green" story, regardless of how convenient or inconvenient the truth may be. The latest green tale comes from Perth's Carnegie Corporation, which released details of an "independent report" stating wave power could provide 171,000 megawatts of electricity for Australia - four times our existing power generation.

Carnegie Corporation managing director Michael Ottaviano said the report, by London based RPS MetOcean, found that Victoria has an "estimated near-shore wave energy resource of 18,000MW, almost double the state's total installed power generation capacity". "Harnessing Victoria's waves could generate 20% of the state's current power needs," Ottaviano added. The market lapped it up, with Carnegie Corporation rising 26%, or 3.5¢ to 17¢ on the news.

But it seems Carnegie Corporation has a different interpretation to Full Disclosure about what constitutes an independent report. In this case, Carnegie Corporation paid RPS MetOcean to do the work. When pressed on how much Carnegie Corporation paid RPS MetOcean, Ottaviano refused to answer. "Of course I can't disclose that," he said. "Like with all our supply contracts, I can't reveal the figures paid." Supply contract - an interesting choice of words.

Also tucked away in the executive summary of the report is the following tidbit of information: "Wave data was sourced primarily from NOAA WaveWatch III modelling and compared to available measured data for seven sites across southern Australia." In English, that means the power estimates are based on computer modelling, and the only real data has come from seven buoys floating off Australia's 36,000 km coastline. That's one every 5140 km.

And how many of those buoys are located in Victoria, where Carnegie Corporation hopes 18,000MW of power can be generated? None. Nada. Zip. The closest two are at Cape Sorell, on the west coast of Tasmania, and Eden in NSW. There's another at Kangaroo Island and four are in WA.

Ottaviano stands by the report. "It has been done by RPS MetOcean, a respected company, using tried and tested methods backed by facts and actual wave data gathered from 11 sites," he said. Except it's seven sites, not it. Indeed, the estimates are largely based on WaveWatch III computer modelling - which British meteorological bodies say "has been found to overestimate the size of waves". "Yes, I am aware of that," Ottaviano told Full Disclosure.

"But we have been deliberately conservative in our estimates because of that." Not as conservative as the nation's previous Prime Minister, who rode wave power into the last election. "Wave energy, such as that being developed by Carnegie Corporation in Perth, is a leading innovative renewable energy technology," said John Howard back in October, before pledging $5 million to the company.