Any fledgling technology is going to have its troubles gaining ground but trying to get a foothold during an economic crisis is doubly hard. Such is the lesson currently being learned by tidal power as yet another major wave power company, Pelamis Wave Power, announces it is pulling its tidal power generators out of the water.

The three generators, which were off the coast of Portugal, were yanked out due to “technical and financial difficulties.”

The removal of the Pelamis Wave Power project along with the wrecking of Verdant Powers East River project in New York has brought the world’s totally number of wave power projects down to 19 (although Verdant Power’s project may be reinstalled).

While both nature and the credit crisis wage a war of attrition on current tidal power projects, new projects are also meeting resistance. Recently, Vancouver, British Columbia’s Finavera Renewables decided to opt out of the wave power industry when the California’s Public Utilities Commission sank its plans for a project there.

All news isn’t bad however, as San Francisco’s Mayor Gavin Newsom is still pushing ahead with plans for a large wave power project that could produce as much as 100 MW in the Bay Area. The U.K. is also mapping the currents of its coastal regions in anticipation of sinking more money into wave power.

A silent but informative introduction to how wave power works. The power in our seas is vast – and wave power is at an innovative stage. According to government and industry figures, wave and tidal power combined could meet 12.5 per cent of today’s electricity demand – economically and practically – by 2025.

The ocean is a source of two significant sustainable forms of energy: thermal energy associated with the sun’s heat absorbed by the ocean, and mechanical energy associated with the waves, currents and tides. Since the oceans cover more than 71% of the earth’s surface, these forms of energy represent the largest solar collectors and retainers of the sun’s vast energy that reach the earth’s surface. This project is being developed by Florida Atlantic University’s Center of Excellence in Ocean Energy Technology.

Ocean Power Technologies and the United States Navy have joined forces to build a small wave farm off the coast of Oahu, Hawaii. The company has installed a PowerBuoy unit a mile off the Kaneohe Bay Marine Corp Base, with plans to install others in the near future to generate 1MW. The units are just 12 feet in diameter and 55 feet long and can they be arranged in larger arrays that generate hundreds of megawatts of clean power. This endeavor is part of the Navy’s long term goal of reducing their dependence on fuel for power.