The waves crash down with enormous energy. Sometimes they are strong enough to damage seaside walls and buildings, or even make cliffs crumble.
Do you know how we can make use of energy from the waves?
One idea is to place a line of rafts floating on the sea. These rafts move up and down with the waves, and their kinetic energy can be converted to electricity. One type of raft is the Salter duck, named after its British inventor, Stephen Salter. Salter ducks bob up and down as the waves pass by. Their movement produces energy that pumps water through a turbine, which then turns a generator.
As the tide water flows out, it passes through turbines to generate electricity. There are few large tidal power stations because they are expensive to build.
The energy in the sea’s tides, which rise and fall every day, can be converted to hydroelectric power. When the tide comes in, the water is stored behind a dam. When the tide goes out, the water flows from the dam through a turbine and produces electricity. There are tidal power stations in northern France, on the Annapolis River in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia, and at Murmansk in Russia.
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