Posted by Scott Ellis (216.87.95.64) on September 22, 2003 at 23:00:27:
excerpt:
Moon Brings Novel Green Power to Arctic Homes
By Alister DoyleOSLO (Reuters) - Homes on the Arctic tip of Norway started getting power from the moon on Saturday via a unique subsea power station driven by the rise and fall of the tide.
A tidal current in a sea channel near the town of Hammerfest, caused by the gravitational tug of the moon on the earth, started turning the 33-foot blades of a turbine bolted to the seabed to generate electricity for the local grid.
The prototype looks like an underwater windmill and is expected to generate about 700,000 kilowatt hours of non-polluting energy a year, or enough to light and heat about 30 homes.
"This is the first time in the world that electricity from a tidal current has been fed into a power grid," Harald Johansen, managing director of Hammerfest Stroem which has led the project, told Reuters.
[...]
The water flows at about 8 feet per second for about 12 hours when the tide is rising through the Kvalsund channel, pauses at high tide and then reverses direction. The blades on the turbine automatically turn to face the current.If successful, the project could herald far wider use of predictable tides in green energy and generate millions of dollars in orders. Windmills, by contrast, are useless in calm weather and have to be built to withstand hurricane-force winds.