Slashdot Mirror
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."
Thats good, but how much energy does New York use?
Will this have any large effect on the overall ease of burden from other power sources or is this just "extra cheese" as far as they are concerned?
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 first rule of intelligent tinkering is to save all the pieces." --Aldo Leopold (Paraphrased)
I'm making a radio broadcasting book, and I had a question about the New York water system that I never quite addressed.
It's on this picture: http://www.usinternet.com/users/kyledrake/newyork- radio.jpg
It's an old field strength determination from the 1920s. See the water area below the taller buildings with the '20' strength? Is that water salty, fresh, or a mix of both (salty-leaning, or fresh-leaning even)? The reason I ask, is because if it is salty, it shows with more signifigance the blocking ability of structures (as salt water is very conductive).
Thank you!
There is only one other project like this that I have heard of. It's in France, and its the Usine de la Rance.
The Usine Maremotice de la Rance is based on the French equivalent of the St Lawrence Bay. This is a place where the tide amplitude is one of the highest in the world.
At low tide, the sea truly is miles away from the shore. I have been there, and it's amazing how far away the ocean can go... and how fast it can come back. Saint Malo, the nearest city, was actually (a few centuries ago) an island at high tide, and people had to wait for the low tides to cross over the sand to the city.
The 'Usine' itself has been pretty successful, and provides 'clean', tide-based electricity to Saint Malo and other cities, but its ecological impact has been underestimated: the Rance, which used to be a clean river is now severely clogged with mud and silt that are not evacuated by the tide, to the detriment of wildlife. Many bird and fish species have left the river for others or have died off completely.
I hope the company that will build the New York project has taken this data into account for its project (which seems to be the case).
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
Too bad that nuclear power looks a lot cheaper than it is due to the fact that it is heavily subsidized. If we decide to subsidize a non-cost-effective energy generation, why not subsidize something that has fewer hazardous waste products, is more down-scaleable, and less of a magnet for terrorists- like wind or solar power?
pi = 3.141592653589793helpimtrappedinauniversefactory7
Hydro is so abundant here that we only have to import 10% of our power needs! =)
That's right, we're power importers in BC. We're just lucky that BC Hydro can literally turn on and off the generators with next to no cost. This lets them, and eventually us, benefit from high priced exports when there's peak power demand elsewhere, balanced against larger amounts of relatively cheap imported power at off-peak times.
I guess my point would be, don't be too proud of power being mostly "clean" hydro - it may not stay that way forever.
Sure can!
Check this article entitled San Francisco-area garbage generates energy.
And now from the SANE point of view ...
... like the East River if you just happen to be in that part of the world.
just so you know, PCB's often build up on road surfaces, having been expelled in small quantities from vehicle exhaust.
That gets washed into the surrounding drainages
In Victoria BC, environmentalists are trying to sue the city for allowing PCB's to enter the surrounding ocean. Victoria doesn't dump PCB's. The source was found to be the runoff from roads.
Victoria isn't even a big city.
George Bush + Linux = "I will not let information get in the way of the fight against Windows"
Nuclear is a big and powerful method to generate a lot of power, and to insure that huge vast sums of money in the form of never ending profits remain in a small handful of corporations pockets. It's also quite a juicy target, therefore a major security risk, plus, that pesky waste stuff, that hangs around hot longer than recorded human history to date.
If you are more interested in having energy decentralised, with millions of potential islands instead of a few hundred, with the costs (and profits) decentralised, and the supplies to come from more diverse sources, and letting people and smaller businesses own their own energy, rather than leasing it with no long range payment plan available, then nuclear as it stands today is not much of an option, it is simply way too expensive and dangerous, but the other sources are an option, and are infinetly scalable.
And if I could harness the power of the run on sentence, we wouldn't even need to be having this discussion!