Oregon Public Broadcasting

Scientists, politicians and wave power companies attended a summit in Oregon Tuesday to talk about how to push their technology beyond research and into business.

Governor Ted Kulongoski told the summit that the work being done on wave farms will be regarded in 20-years as a smart investment.

Experts on more established renewable resources, like wind and solar power, showed the summit how they dealt with regulations and other road blocks that slowed their commercializations.

Ocean Power Technologies has projects running in Scotland, Cornwall, Australia and Japan.

Chairman George Taylor says the company plans to test a new buoy off Reedsport next year -- followed by nine others in 2012.

George Taylor: "Within 3 to 4 years we will be building arrays which will be able to demonstrate the cost of the energy is going to be competitive with fossil fuel without any subsidies."

Oregon is well-placed geographically to take advantage of wave power. But corrosive salt water, bad storms and other problems have dogged the technology.