Oregon State, with the only ocean engineering program in the area, seemed like an ideal alternative.
Only the Corps of Engineers had a facility big enough for the task, but they had declined. The structures withstood the fury of the North Pacific far better than traditional rubble-mound construction, but Hinsdale still needed an independent assessment to gain a competitive edge. Instead of just piling big rocks into the sea, the company’s crane operators positioned specially quarried, 25-ton rectangular basalt blocks so they would lock in place to form a smooth, densely packed outer layer. What really grabbed his attention were the immense protective breakwaters that would surround every four- acre power station, and nobody knew more about how to build them than Hinsdale.įor years, Umpqua had built or repaired jetties and breakwaters up and down the Oregon Coast. Westinghouse and other corporate giants had already poured millions into the audacious project. Hinsdale, then president of Umpqua River Navigation in Reedsport, had his eye on plans to build and deploy a string of floating nuclear power plants along the East Coast.
“Howard said, ‘I don’t need them, I’ll do it myself,’ and that’s how the wave lab started at Oregon State,” said Terry Dibble, an electrical engineer who joined the lab in its earliest days. Researchers faithfully recreated SEaside, Oregon, circa 2008 for a test of the
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