'Old fogies' obsession: Turning waves into power

One of my favorite passages:

"We were sitting around saying we can't understand why America isn't doing better in renewable energy," says Fred Lightfoot, 82, an allegedly retired electrical engineer from Bremerton. "And then we thought: 'Hey, we're engineers. Instead of complaining, as we usually do, why don't we come up with something?' "

How could we bootstrap a start-up based on these ideas? Is it possible?

We'd need a small injection of cash to build a small system that produces a small amount of fuel that can be sold to raise enough money to maintain the existing system with a little to spare. That small amount of extra money can then go into building another one, then another.

After building 10 it becomes moderately profitable, and then we move on to building a bigger version.

How do the sums pan out? How big doe this have to be? How are they converting electricity/water/CO2 into methanol?

I would so like to see this happen.