By Peter Weiss
When the steel shell called Osprey confronted the sea, it was David facing Goliath. This time, Goliath won.
Osprey was an experiment in renewable energy production that challenged the power of the sea in 1995. A 750-metric ton structure the size of a small apartment house, it was designed to squat on the seabed, half submerged in 14 meters of water. Placed 100 m from shore at Dounreay, Scotland, it was to convert the energy in the waves striking it into electricity. This David was supposed to shrug off the worst that the oceanic Goliath could throw at it and keep powering the lights of Dounreay with a steady stream of environmentally “green” electricity.