PORT KEMBLA, Australia — Australia’s cities are drought-parched and its desert outback drenched by floods, but climate change has not yet killed the country’s famed surf beaches, or their promise of clean energy. Australia’s first commercial wave-generated power station will in weeks begin supplying homes south of Sydney with electricity and fresh drinking water, courtesy of the sea. ‘The energy in waves is the densest of any natural sources of energy. It’s pretty much always there and it doesn’t go away like sun and wind do,’ said John Bell, the chief finance officer with station developer Energetech. Lying anchored just 100 yards off a popular surf beach near Wollongong, a city of around 200,000 people just south of Sydney, the 485-ton plant will power 500 homes along the local grid. Electricity is generated when waves wash into a funnel facing the ocean, driving air through a pipe and into a turbine capable of pumping 500 kilowatts of clean power each day into the local grid. The $4.7 million floating plant, built to withstand a 1-in-100 year storm, can also desalinate 2,000 liters of drinking water each day for almost as many homes as it […]