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First Commercial Sub-Sea Tidal Power Station
daksis writes "New Scientist is reporting that the first commercial sub-sea tidal power station has gone online in Hammerfest Norway. 'The power station, which resembles an underwater windmill, began generating electricity for the town of Hammerfest. Although still largely a prototype, the generator is the first in the world to harness the power of the sea and be connected to an electricity grid.' If they can make the technology commercially viable, then we'll have yet another weapon in the arsenal for producing cleaner energy."
Okey, why was there no mention of how many fish are going to get killed by this device?
Windmills kill birds, wavemills will kill fish!
Somebody think of the fish!
</sarcasm>
Sounds cool. I am all for multiple sources of energy, but one thing many folks forget is that there is a certain amount of environmental impact through all energy sources. These will probably affect the coast lines in some fashion I would guess. I wonder if we'll hear about the different problems these will cause, and have greenpeace or something yelling how they are evil? I guess we'll see.
Norris/Palin 2012
Fact: We deserve leaders who can kick your ass and field dress your carcass.
10 meter blades that they have are spinning quite slowly - I'm sure the fish could easily swim out of the way. I'm sure they also wanted to avoid seaweed and have some sort of filter/fence to prevent stuff from clogging up the blade.
..........FULL STOP.
Even solar has problems with the environment. At Solar One (and presumably Solar Two, which used the same setup), there was a problem with birds flying into the mirrors at full speed, which tended to be a bit fatal for the bird. Also, considering the amount of concentrated sunlight near those towers, I wonder how a bird fared if it flew through. It was probably like passing through a solar oven.
Necessity is the mother of invention.
Laziness is the father.