The UK Wave Power Project: Salter’s Duck

Abstract

AbstractThis chapteroutlines what happened to research into a new and unorthodox energy technology that could have helped displace traditional energy supply methods by extracting energy from the waves at sea. The project received funding filtered via the administrative structure of the traditional and competing energy system—nuclear power. The funding source constantly delayed and obstructed the supply of funds making day-to-day operations difficult to manage and the results of the research were assessed by experts who worked within the old technology and so had vested and conflicting interests. This case offers an example of trying to do research with integrity while the researchers were placed in a ‘no win’ situation. Considerable ethical reflection is required to fully understand the context in which the research had to be conducted. The lessons are apt for innovative disruptive technologies that are framed by political, economic and ideological constraints. Those constraints, together with the evident research misconduct that took place, can only be described as sabotage. Again, such actions must be understood in terms of the balance of many interests, most of which failed to live up to standards of professional research integrity.