Green energy? What about… blue energy?!
This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science.
Every day, we need more renewable energy — but there’s only so much land for windmills and solar farms. So why not capture the power of ocean waves?
Enter Takahito Iida and the team at The University of Osaka. They designed a simple spinning wheel inside a floating platform, like a bicycle pedal crank turned on its side. As the platform moves with every wave, the wheel spins. Spinning motion equals electricity.
Results? This design could harvest up to five times more energy from small waves to giant ones!
Y’know, the ocean’s been flexing for billions of years, and finally, we’re plugging in.
Reference: Iida, T. (2026). Linear analysis of a gyroscopic wave energy converter: absorbing half of the wave energy over broadband frequencies. Journal of Fluid Mechanics, 1029, A20. doi:10.1017/jfm.2026.11172