With health care reform hopefully wrapping up soon, I've been looking for the next issue to lose sleep over. I think I'm going to go with the Cap and Trade bill. I know most people, including many here I respect, say you can't really do a meaningful clean energy bill without cap and trade. I don't know about that, I'll take their word for it. I'll focuse on the new sources of energy. Recently, a story about a new energy project in New York's East River caught my attention.
Verdant Power has recently embarked on a tidal energy project in the East River of New York. Here's a video from Discovery Tech News @ Current TV:
Tidal energy is a form of hydropower that converts the energy of tides into electricity or other useful forms of power. Tidal power has potential for future electricity generation, as tides are more predictable than wind energy and solar power. Historically, tide mills have been used, both in Europe and on the Atlantic coast of North America. The earliest occurrences date from the Middle Ages, or even from Roman times.
There are 3 types of tidal power: tidal stream systems, tidal barrages, and tidal lagoons. I'm going to focus on tidal stream systems in this diary.
While tidal stream generators draw energy from currents in much the same way as wind turbines, the potential for power generation by an individual tidal turbine can be greater than that of similarly rated wind energy turbine. With the density of water being 800 times the density of air, a single generator can provide significant power at low tidal flow velocities (compared with wind speed). Because power varies with the density of medium and the cube of velocity, water speeds of nearly one-tenth of the speed of wind provide the same power for the same size of turbine system. However this limits the application of the technology to places where the tide moves at speeds of at least 2 knots.
Axial Turbines are close in concept to traditional windmills operating under the sea, and they have the most prototypes currently operating. Here is an animation of how the system works, from AlternativeEnergy
Since April 2007 Verdant Power has been running a prototype project in the East River between Queens and Roosevelt Island, making it the first major tidal-power project in the United States. The strong currents have posed challenges to the design: the blades of the 2006 and 2007 prototypes broke off, and new reinforced turbines were installed in September 2008. Since then, Verdant has also started work on a project in the St. Lawrence River. Other areas in the U.S. that could use such systems are: the Golden Gate are in the San Francisco Bay, Piscataqua River in New Hampshire, and Humboldt County CA.
Of course, there are concerns about the effects of such a system on the marine life where the systems are installed. So far, there have been no ill effects found, but Verdant is required by the EPA to monitor the issue closely, so we'll know soon enough if there is a problem.
This seems like an interesting part of the answer to our energy concerns. Of course, it can only be used in certain areas, but every little bit helps.