East River to generate electricity?

[DoYouEverWonder]

April 13, 2005, 11:37 PM EDT

A Virginia company won federal permission Wednesday to install six underwater turbines in the East River in a $3.5 million experiment to generate electricity from tides.

The company, Verdant Power Llc, based in Arlington, eventually hopes to install as many as 300 turbines on the river bottom next to Roosevelt Island in a field a mile long and 270 feet wide.

It would be the first of its kind in the nation and generate electricity for about 8,000 homes.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission gave the privately held company permission for the six turbines without the lengthy approval process normally required for such facilities.

http://www.nynewsday.com/news/local/manhattan/nyc-east0414,0,442781.story?coll=nyc-moreny-headlines


Let's hope this works. Sounds like a great idea.

[JPZenger]

1. Clogged?

Do you think these underwater turbines will get clogged up with pieces of Tony Soprano's former business associates?

[paineinthearse]

2. ewwwwwwwwwwww

I was stationed on a coast guard cutter that moored on governors island and stood many quarterdeck watches on yankee pier.

Hope this generator has filters for the "coney island white fish".

[Wilms]

3. It does sound like a great idea.

The East River is (I think, called) an estuary.

Water moves in one direction for low tide, and the other direction during high tide.

And it's swift.

This might be swell.