A Juneau company turning idle fishing boats into tidal power just cracked a deep-fjord problem

Sitkana, the Juneau company testing whether Alaska's idle fishing vessels can double as platforms for harvesting tidal energy, won a patent Tuesday for solving a problem it says has long held tidal generators back in deep fjords: the cable to shore twisting itself up as the tide turns.

The problem is a mechanical one. A submerged generator has to pivot back and forth as the tide reverses direction — but every pivot risks winding up the power line running to shore. Sitkana's design puts a rotating electrical contact in the line that keeps current flowing even as the hardware turns, so the generator can swing with the tide without twisting its own tether. The patent names Sitkana founder Lance McMullan as the inventor.

The company points to a large potential payoff. Its patent cites at least 21 U.S. sites — mostly fjords running from Washington up through Southeast Alaska — that it estimates hold some 270 terawatt-hours of tidal energy a year, worth roughly $26 billion, none of it currently captured. That's the potential, not a guarantee; a patent proves an idea is new, not that a market exists for it.

Sitkana, founded in 2021, is working under a federal Energy Department grant with Sandia National Laboratories as a partner. The department cautions that tidal technology is still early-stage, facing high costs and brutal ocean conditions.

The idea has drawn a concern from the fishing fleet. The Alaska Longline Fishermen's Association has warned that such devices could crowd out fishing grounds — the same coastal waters that hold the tidal energy. Sitkana's patent names no specific place it would be deployed, and neither the company nor the association weighs in on that question in the record.