Just off of the shore on Oahu’s windward side, a lone yellow buoy could be a first in the future of American energy. Already more than popular with the surfing crowd, as the sets/waves roll-in here, the buoy generates its power and a new industry begins to take shape.

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As renewable energy, wave power can be considered the toughest to corral and likely the one with the most potential. Unlike solar and wind power, which rely on conditions, wave power is constant and with so much of the earth covered by water, it is readily available for most of the world. So far it seems the buoys do not cause damage to sea life or the water they intend to use.

Here on Oahu not only is the weather so inviting, but the predicability of these waves also make for perfect conditions in power generation. The waves used here aren’t the majestic surfing waves with a great tube, but the up and down motion of the ocean before the waves crash ashore. John Dunbar is a civilian contractor for Marine Corps Base Hawaii, “The waves around Hawaii have been tested and shown to be some of the best for producing energy from wave conversion.”

On a bright day this December, we got one of the only up close views of the buoy at work. Floating serenely off of Kaneohe, this is the first of its kind in the nation that actually feeds energy into the public power supply, or “the Grid”…in this case it’s the base’s power station. We are told at maximum output, this one buoy could power five homes here at the base.

We caught a ride out here on the water with the U.S. Navy, who shares the base with the Marines. Here you can see the up and down motion of the swells and the buoy at work as it goes creates energy that is collected inside and eventually taken to shore via an undersea cable. With this technology there’s considerable opportunity to create some power, however, there’s also challenges: the obvious – water, weather, wind, but also rust, corrosion, and marine life from below can actually damage what is surprisingly a delicate piece of machinery.

As Lorren Livingston of Ocean Power Technologies tells us, “We’re taking a hunk of steel, forming it to our engineering specs, painting it and covering it as best we can, and putting it in the worst environment it can possibly go in: salt water.”

Wave energy boosters have big plans for the future and are hoping to build farms of floating bouy’s all around the globe. A larger version of this one will soon go into the ocean off of the English coast for example. The goal stateside is to produce up to 10 percent of America’s power needs, which is more than all of the hydroelectic energy currently created in the U.S. today. What do you think?