Belo Monte Dam is a controversial mega dam being built in the Amazon on Indigenous land. The old project conceived during the military dictatorship (1964-1985), and which was revived by the Lula government, is the bête noire of Brazilian environmentalists due to the damage it will cause to a pristine region in the Amazon. It will pave the way to tens of other dams in (more…)

The U.S. defense and aerospace giant, Lockheed Martin, is partnering with a major Chinese company to build a pilot project off the southern Chinese coast that will use temperature differentials between the deep and shallow ocean to generate electricity.

The technology, known as ocean thermal energy (more…)

I received an interesting press release about something called Nautical Torque technology, a process for generating energy from the rise and fall of ships and other large vessels with the tide. It was invented by the late Cahill Maloney; his son, Galen, is now carrying the torch. (more…)

Just under two years ago, Energy Refuge went to Ontario for a conference on water technology. At the time, we visited the site of the Niagara Tunnel Project, when a hard-rock tunnel boring machine had finally broken through the other side.

Now, the Ontario government has just finished the (more…)

UK officials are underestimating the vast energy potential of marine tides, a renewable and reliable energy source that could meet 20 percent of the nation’s electricity needs, according to a new report.

Writing in the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A, researchers explain that while the process of exploiting tidal energy remains (more…)

Ocean Renewable Power Company (ORPC) is Maine company that develops ocean and river power systems.

According to this NRDC blog post, ORPC’s Cobscook Bay tidal energy project in the Bay of Fundy in Maine is the first in the U.S. to receive a FERC license, include a power purchase agreement, and install and (more…)

In my time spent working on Brooklyn apartments, I’ve seen some strange things, but nothing as odd as the time I witnessed a man harnessing the power of his elliptical to send electricity to the other lights in the home. Weird, right? Nonetheless – this may be the direction in which we’re heading!

Recently, an inventor named Ryan Jongwoo Choi (more…)

Ocean Power Technologies (OPT) and Lockheed Martin have announced they will team to develop a 19-megawatt (MW) wave energy project off the coast of Victoria, Australia. When complete, the project will be one of the largest wave energy generation projects in the world. (more…)

Ecofys is Dutch renewable energy and climate policy consultancy that has developed a Wave Rotor tidal energy device.

IHC Merwede, a Dutch company that focuses on design and construction solutions for the maritime sector, recently acquired the Wave Rotor technology.

The Wave Rotor technology enables IHC Merwede to (more…)

Hydropower or water power is power derived from the energy of falling water, which may be harnessed for useful purposes. Since ancient times, hydropower has been used for irrigation and the operation of various mechanical devices, such as watermills, sawmills, textile mills, dock cranes, and domestic lifts since ancient times. It is one of several renewable (more…)