Waves of Clean Energy Production

Oregon is leveraging its labor, technological, and natural resources to produce clean energy from wave power and at the same time pump new economic promise into established industries. Credit: Oregon Iron Works

New technology, union labor produce wave park

Oregon, which harnesses a huge amount of its electricity from hydroelectric power, is jumping from rivers to the coast. Plans to build a wave park - a system of enormous buoys which capture energy from the rise and fall of ocean waves and convert it into electricity for use in homes and businesses - is underway off the coast near the town of Reedsport.

With one test buoy already deployed, the story of how the project came to be illustrates how public policy and investment, in conjunction with flexible and innovative businesses, can lead to clean, renewable energy while providing jobs for skilled workers.

The project is an example of how a state can leverage its resources to produce clean energy and at the same time pump new economic promise into established industries.

Planning for the wave park began in 2006 when Oregon Solutions, a non-profit created under the state’s Sustainability Act of 2001, drew together state and local politicians, area residents, fishermen, and Ocean Power Technology, a company specializing in offshore wave technology.

By simply sitting down together, the parties were able to weave a path through not only each other’s concerns, but the maze of applicable regulations to agree on a final course of action.

“This is a perfect example of how public policy and investment can lead a large group of stakeholders into a collaboration that means clean energy and good, quality jobs for the state’s workers,” said Barbara Byrd, the secretary-treasurer of the Oregon AFL-CIO, and leader of Oregon State Apollo.

The 64-year-old Clackamas company building the buoys, Oregon Iron Works, initially helped build some of the state’s large infrastructure projects, including the bridges and dams of Oregon’s scenic Columbia River Valley. With those projects completed the company has had to reinvent itself over the years, focusing on new industries, in everything from aerospace to high-tech ship building.

In the wave power project, Oregon Iron Works used its skilled workforce, with vast expertise in both metal fabrication and harsh marine environments, to build state-of-the-art energy generating buoys.

“Green technology is part of our long-term future. U.S. manufacturing is alive and well and should be taking advantage of this opportunity,” said Chandra Brown, vice president of Oregon Iron Works.

The company currently employs about 400 people, about half of whom are represented by Ironworkers Local 516. Each buoy takes 10 to 20 people to build. With one prototype complete and more on order for this project, Brown can see a day when they could employ hundreds more in just this division.

Oregon Ironworks also is the only American manufacturer of streetcars, a form of public transit that more than 30 cities, including Portland, have embraced since the late 1980s to move people, ease congestion, and promote real estate investments around transit stations. The company says they know of 60 more cities that are seriously researching streetcar systems, including Tucson, Az. and Miami, Fla.

In many, the electricity to power the trains could also eventually come from wave energy buoys made by the company.

Cassandra Stern, a former reporter for The Washington Post, is a contributor to the Apollo Alliance.

For More Information:

Barbara Byrd
Secretary-Treasurer
Oregon AFL-CIO
Email: barbara@oraflcio.org

Ironworkers Local 516
Web site: http://www.local516.org/

Mikeael J. Lappier
Business Agent and Financial Secretary
Local 516
Phone: 503-257-4743

Oregon Iron Works
Phone: 503-653-6300
Web site: http://www.oregoniron.com/