With the booming investment in and hype surrounding alternative ways to generate electricity — $451 million in the second quarter alone, according to a recent PricewaterhouseCoopers MoneyTree survey — many technology developers are placing their bets on less-tested energy sources. That is, the technology itself may work, but the business case is more tenuous.

Take SRI International, which plans to harvest the energy generated by waves to make electricity. The company's main product consists of a plastic buoy that generates about 5 watts of electricity, or enough to power a light bulb, and that in large clusters might produce enough juice to be worth capturing. For now, the technology isn't aimed at homes, but rather to power deep-sea communications beacons.

Harvesting ocean waves also poses a challenge because salt water and the constant pull of the tides damages equipment. Meanwhile, there are environmental concerns about how wave generators affect sea life. Buoys are less problematic than turbines, but in large numbers they could cause a range of problems, including for shipping and coastal real estate owners.

SRI licenses its technology, so any enterprising company that thinks ocean power is the wave of the future should investigate. But technology will only be part of the battle with bringing wave power to market. —Stacey Higginbotham

See Aug. 22 story from MIT Technology Review
See April 4 story from The Deal newsweekly

Tags: Clean Tech, vc, venture+capital