Green Options

Only after I snoozed my way through high school science class did science become more compelling than science fiction.

Back then, there was just no compelling reason to pay attention. Just a browzy fly buzzing in a smelly boring lab full of long agreed-upon dull principles that were really neither here nor there. In those days there were no colliding continents or hydrothermal vents or extremophile lifeforms. We looked to sci-fi for that.

Who knew that our planet would soon be busting at the seams with 7 billion of us. That our fossil fuel use would threaten our survival with climate changes — on a level unseen on the planet since Cyanobacteria made it safe it for oxygen-breathers 4 billion years ago.

Or that we would not only discover vast strange heat sources under the ocean but that we’d actually consider mining these hydrothermal vents for renewable energy: That was the sort of story you’d only find in science fiction back then.

But yet, here we are. This is not science fiction:

A green-energy ocean glider has cruised back and forth between the islands of St. Thomas and St. Croix more than 20 times since its launch in December. Being tested by researchers from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and Webb Research Corporation, the robotic glider uses ocean heat to warm wax-filled tubes that then expand to generate mechanical energy that drives the [...]

Imagine a vast source of energy as clean as wind power but without the NIMBY factor of wind farm projects like the one in Cape Cod. The source? South Florida’s Gulf Stream.

Researchers at Florida Atlantic University’s (FAU) recently established Florida Center of Excellence in Ocean Energy Technology are working on a pilot project that would [...]