We at ACE are all about finding new ways to go green on on any scale, from the small scale of greening up your daily commute to school to large energy companies finding new, improved and totally awesome ways to make renewable energy available to all.

One new way that is currently being investigated is capturing the the energy from waves in the ocean and turning them into useable energy. The idea seems great in theory: oceans are HUGE and basically everywhere so why not start turning waves into energy? Well, wave devices are noisy and all of the underwater noise may have dangerous consequences for the marine life that are used to living in silence and serenity.

Luckily, IBM and the Sustainable Energy Authority Ireland (SEAI) have gotten together to try to figure out exactly what the impact of wave capture devices will be on the ecosystems in which they will be. Together they will produce one of the world’s largest collections of underwater data ever. To this they will put IBM’s sensing platforms, communications infrastructure and real-time analytic capturing devices in Ireland’s Galway Bay. Here they will collect the necessary data to see if the wave devices can be rolled out (yes, the pun is intended) in oceans across the globe.

Conveniently enough, the bay is also home to the SmartBay project, which is a collaboration between IBM Research and the Marine Institute Ireland. The project monitors pollution levels, wave conditions and the effect it has on marine life. Basically, the project is trying to figure out precisely what wave energy will do to the ocean.

This research is key to being able to use wave energy all around the world. Check out the full article here. What energy source would YOU like to invent?