Green Energy From Manhattan's East River

circletimessquare writes "New York City's waterways are geographically unique in that they force tides from Long Island Sound down the East River in one of the most concentrated, powerful flows on the East Coast. If all goes as planned, a company called Verdant Power will build a $20 million, 10 megawatt underwater turbine field there by late 2005. The turbines spin slowly enough so that they pose no threat to wildlife (har har), are placed in spots where they do not interfere with commercial shipping, and are deep enough to not interfere with recreational boating. About the only drawback to the scheme are the supply shortage periods when the tides are slack. The New York Times has the scoop."

Comments

Re:Good News

[emorphien]

That's the moderators for you. Collectively ignorant, singularly out to get you.

Reminds me of

[r.jimenezz]

There was an Ask Slashdot some months ago discussing ways to get off the grid using something like this. Whilst what the NYT article describes is certainly not for your average DIYer, some very interesting points were made in that Ask Slashdot about this form of enery generation.

Green Indeed

[twitter]

At seven cents a kilowatt-hour, that's some green power. Dollar bill green, that is. Nuclear still puts out power at under three cents a kilowatt hour and it does so 24-7. You would think it's cheaper to run a water wheel.

Re:Green Indeed

[Anonymous Coward]

Magnet for terrorists? You can go ahead and shove your FUD right up your ass.

Nuclear Power is the safest and most efficient way to create power on a large scale.

Oil and Coal are constantly pumping out toxins, i.e. they are always spilling them.

Nuclear Power is NOT constantly pumping out radiation/toxins. In fact, the fuel sits in pools when it is done, harming not a damn soul (including the environment).

So if you ask me, I'd take the more efficient form that has a much much smaller chance of harming me over the alternatives (which have a probability of 1.0 of harming me, because they always are pumping out harmful substances).

Yes green friendly power is nice, and I'll embrace it whenever I can, but for the most part it is impractical.

Re:Green Indeed

[CSharpMinor]

I would be alarmed by that article if most of it were even misleading instead of simply false.

The Price-Andersen Act simply allows the government to act as an insurance broker for nuclear power plants. The plants PAY for the insurance, and it only covers small accidents-- maximum liability for the government is something like $10 million. Furthermore, the act allows for priave companies to step in to take over the insurace after a period of some years-- something that private companies have indeed done. (The PA Act has actually made taxpayers money, as plants have paid out more than they have received, just like any successful insurance company. So it doesn't count as subsidy at all.)

As for the "$66 billion" figure, that's even worse. They mean, "The military has spent $66 billion researching nuclear reactors for their own use between 1948 and 1998."

Nuclear power does receive some subsidies, but not many-- especially compared to wind and solar, which are absolutely not cost effective. Coal, the second cheapest method of generating electricity (next to nuclear, unremarkably), receives over a billion dollars a year from the federal government just to support miners who have developed black lung disease. Oil receives billions as well. In fact, anything you can name receives more money than nuclear.

Nuclear power is not popular, and politicians know it. If nuclear power really received these nefarious subsidies, every senator in Congress would be biting at it so s/he could claim to be "fighting for safer power." Do you really think any member of Congress could pass up the chance to guarantee re-election?

(PS-- solar has some nasty hazardous waste products. The panels themselves are about as toxic as cyanide, as measured by LD50, and generous amounts of arsenic are produced as a result of the doping process of the silicon panels. Furthermore, when solar panels electromigrate, that's it-- if you try to recycle them, you end up using more energy than you got out of the panel in the first place. Those shiny toxic squares have to be thrown away.)

IANANT,BIASTGMOLAARR (Not a nuclear technician, but I am studying to get my operator's license at a research reactor.)

Re:Green Indeed

[FirstOne]

"I would be alarmed by that article if most of it were even misleading instead of simply false."

It would be nice it you got your facts straight... Most of your statements are outright lies !!

"The Price-Andersen Act simply allows the government to act as an insurance broker for nuclear power plants. The plants PAY for the insurance, and it only covers small accidents-- maximum liability for the government is something like $10 million. Furthermore, the act allows for private companies to step in to take over the insurance after a period of some years-- something that private companies have indeed done. (The PA Act has actually made taxpayers money, as plants have paid out more than they have received, just like any successful insurance company. So it doesn't count as subsidy at all.)"

Wow.. talk about deception.... Time for a dose of the truth and here.

"NRC's procedures for ensuring that licensees comply with Price-Anderson Act liability insurance provisions include requirements that licensees provide proof of primary and secondary insurance coverage. NRC requires each licensee to show proof that it has liability insurance that includes the $300 million of primary insurance coverage per site required by the Price Anderson Act. NRC and the licensee also sign an indemnity agreement that requires the licensee to maintain an insurance policy in this amount. This agreement is in effect as long as the owner is licensed to operate the plant."

Note: This is a per plant policy.

"in the event of a nuclear incident causing damages exceeding $300 million, would be collected from each nuclear power plant licensee at a rate of up to $10 million per year and up to a maximum of $95.8 million per incident for each nuclear power plant."

Or roughly 8.5 Billion dollars in total, enforced by a form a government socialism. (Post accident levy).

As for maximum liability.. it goes into the Tragedy of the commons category..
"The key to the tragedy of the commons is when individuals use a public good, they do not bear the entire cost of their several actions."

As for estimate of REAL damages.. take a look a Chernobyl catastrophe

"If accident damages exceed that amount, taxpayers will be asked to make up the difference. Compare that to the 1982 Sandia National Laboratories study (CRAC-2), which projected economic damages of up to $300 Billion (in 1982 dollars) resulting from an accident at the Indian Point, NY reactor site. The 1986 Chernobyl catastrophe already has cost Russia, Ukraine and Belarus some $300 Billion, and the costs-from interdicted land, from radioactive waste disposal, from ongoing health effects-mount daily."

"Moreover, no other hazardous industry has such a subsidized insurance scheme. "

Yes, the Feds and ultimately the Taxpayers are on the hook for unlimited liability, since no company has that type of resources to pay the real cost of a catastrophe, and someone will have to pay for the damages.

Furthermore.. "The Price Anderson Act directs DOE to fully indemnify its contractors for any and all public liability in connection with nuclear activities - even with accidents resulting from a contractor's bad faith, reckless behavior, gross negligence, or willful misconduct."

Re:Green Indeed

[rednox]

Many green energy solutions can be implemented in a decentralized manner, instead of in huge projects like you mention. Installing them in this manner could make use of space that could not otherwise be used for energy generation.

Covering your house's shingles with solar panels would be expensive, but this could provide for much of the electrical needs of your household. For about $14,000, you can buy 24 165w Sharp 1575mm x 826mm solar panels, and save about $500 a year on electricity.

A 20m tower with a 7m diameter wind turbine could be installed in even a very small inner-city house lot. If you live in a reasonably windy climate, this could generate all the electricity you need for about $25,000.

I know these are expensive solutions, but certainly not impossible. The prices will come down.

Re:Good News

[mikael]

Just a guess, but given a household uses somewhere between 4 and 9 kilowatts (maybe a 3 kilowatt cooker plus several 100 watt bulbs, plus TV, microwave, washing machine, drying machine), and there are 4 million inhabitants, that would give you around 16 thousand megawatts. Not forgetting business which would probably double that.

According to Business Council of New York, they have 35,847 megawatts, but need another 9,000 megawatts. So make that 45,000 kilowatts in total.

Re:wild life friendly turbine?

[spacerodent]

no, viruses don't count as "life forms" according to biologists

that's salty, definitely

[circletimessquare]

in fact, the salinity goes up to poughkeepsie (the river to your left, the hudson) a 2 hour drive away... during low rain periods, such as the summer, the salinity creeps up even higher than that, but poughkeepsie is generally considered the point where brackish water gives way to fresh water

on the right is the east river, which leads to long island sound (all ocean) and behind you, from the picture's perspective, is the atlantic ocean (all ocean)

that spot you are talking about is between the tip of manhattan and governor's island, al ocean water, all the time

10 MW and all the trouble with salt water.

[Esben]

Isn't really very much... The company I work for allready sell windtubines at 3MW. Other companies
sell even bigger ones (4.5MW I believe.)

These turbines takes a lot of manpower to keep running. Stuff needs to be repaired every month or so. I can't start to imagine the problems one would have when trying to put them down into the salty waters of East River!

But then again: One have to try and get the technology running. That was how the windturbine-buisness got started, too, and that is big buisness these days.

Re:Great Idea, but..

[Poingggg]

Sorry to disappoint you, but nuclear power also uses steam, generated by nuclear fission. I won't go into the environmental risks of nuke power, cause I will be modded troll for it (happened in earlier posts), but in the total cycle uranium and plutonium go through from mining (just uranium) to waste product, the only stage that is 'clean' is when it's used for generating electricity. Everything before and after is heavily polluting and does not even outweigh coal. Of course the nuclear industry only shows you the energy-production stage, that, indeed, is rather clean.

Re:wild life friendly turbine?

[nomadic]

I used to live in the East River (well, on an island in the East River, not, like, in the river itself), and it's not an especially life-friendly place. A lot of the blame goes to Connecticut; their rivers drain out into the Sound. The Hudson's pretty bad where it runs past Manhattan, too, which is kind of sad, since upstream the Hudson's gotten so clean you can fish and swim in it (oh my god, environmental regulations worked, quick, libertarians, figure out a way to somehow shift the credit to the free market!)

Re:from the pcb-heaven dept????

[WoTG]

I thought PCB's were a big pollution issue in most of the developed world? Anyway, it's a class of chemicals. Here's the wiki link: Polychlorinated biphenyl. They build up in the food chain - I think. Anyway, the Wiki article knows more than I do.

good points, except...

[circletimessquare]

that's not once but TWICE per orbit of the moon, which is ever 25 hours, so the cycle is every 12.5 hours...

but wait there's more: as mentioned in the article, the turbines swivel on their base and face the incoming tides, then swivel on their base and face the outgoing tides... so really, that's FOUR TIMES per every 25 hour tidal cycle, so that's 6 hours 15 minutes between high and low tide, the vast middle period of which the turbines are cranking away

as mentioned in the article, there's only roughly 6 hours every day when the turbines aren't moving... and those 6 hours are cut up into 4 equal pieces, equally spaced apart, in a 25 hour cycle, which means that every day, the slack periods shift an hour

so the devil's in the details, but it certainly means that this power source isn't as transitory as you initially described it, although it is still most definitely cyclical, just on a much tighter schedule than it originally appears to be

Look a little closer to home

[debest]

There is also a tidal-power plant in Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia. Like these ones, it was built as a test of the technology. Only it's already been around for 20 years.

It puts out 20 MW, and is on the Bay of Fundy, where you will find the truly highest tides in the world.

Re:10MW

[DAldredge]

In 2000 2.9% of generated power in the USA came from oil.

http://fpc.state.gov/documents/organization/2342 3. pdf

Highest tides

[GuyFawkes]

sorry, st malo doesn't have them, two or three places in the world can argue this one, there a place in canada I think, fundy / funday bay or something, bristol channel, etc... they all get about 16 metres at peak....

very close to st malo is the ras de sein, which can lay claim to having some of the fastest tidal currents on earth, eg 9+ knots (real fun in a 30 foot sailing boat with a max hull speed of 7 knots, even more fun when wind and tide oppose each other... lol

the bristol tides run up the severn, which narrows gradually over many miles, leading to something known as the "bore"... surfers have ridden this wave for several miles...

links to pix of the bore
http://www.xmission.com/~dlweber/images/seve rn.jpg
http://www.phy.bris.ac.uk/research/theory/Berry/ se vernbore.jpg

Re:10MW

[Jeremiah Blatz]

10MW won't make a dent I think, but it's a good idea as an experiment. It would be barely 1% of the capacity of one of the nuclear plants up the road.

The main problem with powering Manhattan is not the generation capacity, it's the transmission capacity. During peak load hours, the natural gas generator by my apartment kicks in. Supposedly, if the peak needs of Manhattan were generated off the island, then the wires to the island would melt.

So, power generation in Manhattan doesn't need to be super cheap or super high capacity, it really just needs to be low-pollution and moderately inexpensive. They're not competing with nuclear or coal or large hydro, they're competing with on-demand natural gas, which is nowhere near as cheap.

Re:Question about New York water salinity

[ArtStone]

That picture matches up with the geology of Manhattan. The tip of the island down by Wall Street and up in Midtown (the area below Central Park) are solid bedrock near the surface. The area in between, including SoHo and Greenwich Village, do not have bedrock near the surface, and thus can only support small buildings (at least at the time the area was built).

So cause and effect are backwards - the areas have tall buildings because the bedrock supports them.

IANAG.