Hello; welcome to my personal research blog. My name is Alexandra (with a silent 'xandra' - pronounced Ally). You may wonder what the point of this blog is. Why would I spend so much effort googling for rubber duckies? Here's an attempt to make sense of it:
- Shameless self-promotion. For instance, you can download my PhD thesis, New Perspectives on Wave Energy Converter Control here: http://hdl.handle.net/1842/3109
- In wave power, there's not enough discussion about the things that matter. The discussion which does exist is polarized, dogmatic, and guarded. Speaking from experience, people new to our field have a hard time of it. I'd like to initiate discussions about things I think are important to us; get inputs from people who are experts on these topics, and find out which topics are important to others. I'm less interested in 'being right' than in understanding why others have differing opinions. Overall, I intend to present a balanced viewpoint. Some posts are deliberately one sided to draw discussion. In some cases I've not yet published the post that presents the opposing view. Please leave comments. (But do identify yourself - otherwise its a bit weird). Do not be afraid to disagree with me, particularly if this is your area of expertise. I am genuinely interested in understanding why there is such a wide range of opinion in our field.
- Did I mention I have a lousy memory? One day they'll invent extra RAM for our brains. In the meanwhile, I've found an easy way to remember interesting papers, chats and events concerning wave energy.
- Knowledge is power: I believe that the process of commercialising wave energy can be helped along by giving everyone access to the basic information required to make sound, sustainable decisions. A blog is an effective way of sharing bite-size croquettes (like nuggets, but a bit nicer) of information. If you have any topics you'd like me to discuss, let me know.
- Wave power is full of conundrums. This blog is is helping me understand what these are, and how they need to be solved.
- Two and a half years ago I started this blog to help me pluck up the courage to bang on the doors of some very smart people and ask them how to make wave power cost effective. Writing this blog helped me develop my own thoughts on the matter. My next project is to promote a new design of wave energy converter, the 'Ocean Percolator', as an open-innovation project. I would like to invite universities to adopt this as a research device, and entrepreneurs to consider whether this could be a good starting point for them.
