Tsumoru Shintake
Photographer: Kenji Togo/Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University
Climate Changed
Scuba Diving Physicist Thinks He’s Solved the Wave-Power Puzzle
A pilot project is underway at the Holiday Inn in the Maldives.
The wind doesn’t always blow and clouds sometimes block the sun. But the ocean? It never stops moving.
That simple idea started to obsess Tsumoru Shintake soon after he moved to his new office on the island of Okinawa. A quantum physicist by trade, he was shocked by the Fukushima meltdowns and wondered how he could help wean Japan from nuclear power. Looking out his window onto the crashing waves, he decided they were the answer: he’d harness them to generate affordable electricity. “The ocean is big and beautiful,” the 62-year-old scientist said. “We can use its energy.”