Ocean energy and natural gas hydrate, as two types of novel renewable energy resources, have been attracted a lot of research interests from all over the world. On June 16, Key laboratory held a research seminar at conference room 907, in which Dr. You Yage (Group leader of Laboratory of Ocean Energy Utilization ) and Dr. Wu Nengyou (Group Leader of Laboratory of Gas Hydrate Formation Mechanism ) presented a wonderful lecture about the development and utilization of these two great energy resources, respectively. More than 50 researchers and students attended the seminar.

Dr. You firstly introduced the “wave energy”, which is one of the three ocean energy forms, capturing the energy from ocean surface waves. Combing with some pictures taken on-site, Dr You illustrated the relative energy-capturing methods from ocean waves such as OWC` Raft` Tapchan` Point Absorber` Duck` Pendulum` Frog and Oyster. To overcome the technical difficulty of OWC with relative low efficiency (~10%), a new domestic onshore OWC device with 50KWA capacity was constructed. Being equipped with Hydraulic dynamic capturing system, its total efficiency increased up to 50%. Dr You also introduced the first floating duck device being researched in our country currently. Continuously, tidal current energy and its converting techniques were reviewed by Dr. You. After that, combining with the first and second largest tide power generators in the world, Dr. you illustrated power generation principles from tidal energy` key point` and restrain factors. Finally, Dr. You gave an overall analysis for the technical development ideas and the utilization strategy of ocean energy in our country. In the meantime, some relevant advises were proposed as well.　 

　 Natural gas hydrate has been attracted great attention of the world due to its tremendous reserves` high energy density` wild distribution and clean character. In Dr. Wu’s lecture, the all-around introduction about exploration and development of natural gas hydrate and its current research progress were given. From early 1800s that gas hydrate was firstly discovered to 2008 that Mallik started the trial to drill the well to produce the natural gas hydrate in the permafrost in Canada, all the representative events were briefly reviewed. More than that, Dr. Wu also introduced the exploration and development progress in USA` Russia` Canada` Germany` Japan` India and Korea, respectively. After that, A further introduction was given to the international hot spots and the ongoing key projects, especially the Mallik 2006-2009 exploration trials ` projects in Alaska and deep water Gulf of Mexico. Finally, Dr. Wu summarized research progress on natural gas hydrate exploration and evaluation methods geophysical geochemical and biological properties simulation of formation and decomposition and the environmental effect of gas hydrate system.