When reporters, politicians, and environmental advocates talk about
renewable energy, they talk about wind and solar. This makes sense: Of
the newer generation of renewables, wind is contributing the lion’s
share of electricity generation. California’s wind energy association just announced
that 5 percent of California’s power now comes from wind farms. Solar
plants still provide only a tiny slice of energy, but last year, with
prices dropping, the industry was booming.
But renewable energy includes another force of nature: water.
Hydropower projects—in other words, dams—account for the majority of the
country’s renewable energy generation, but because they’re old and
unexciting, they’re squeezed out of accounts of renewable energy’s
triumphant climb. Tidal power, though, fits right in with wind and
solar: A new Department of Energy report
calls it “one of the fastest-growing emerging technologies in the
renewable sector,” which means that, like solar, it’s small, but appears
to have nearly boundless potential. Together, conventional hydropower,
tidal and wave power, and other water-powered resources could provide 15
percent of America’s electricity by 2030, the Department of Energy
projects.
