Ocean alternative energy: The view from China—‘small is beautiful’

The potential harnessing of tidal power has moved, spurred on by the recurring oil crises, from the back- to the front-burner, again. Concerns over global warming seem to point to an absolute and urgent necessity to limit the burning of fossil fuels. China has huge reserves of coal and they are used on a very large scale to provide heating and energy. The replacement of that source of power is not to be expected in the near future, but China has been looking for several decades at alternative sources. The ocean is one of them. The paper does not aim at comprehensiveness but attempts to provide a review of Chinaʹs efforts in that domain based on several sources and trips to China and Japan.