Sustainable Design Update

Tide Powered Turbines

A British firm “Lunar Energy” (not kidding) has announced that it will build a giant tidal power system in South Korea. The design calls for a tide farm of underwater turbines in an array similar to a wind farm.

The billion dollar project proposed off the South Korean coast will use power from local fast moving tides, and turn a field of 300 60ft-high tidal turbines on the sea floor.

The turbines will be located in deep water where they will not be a danger to ships. I hope the turbines are designed to mitigate the “bass-o-matic” effect on schools of fish.

The project is expected to power 200,000 homes by 2015.

Tests on a 1 megawatt pilot turbine by the Korean authorities will start early next year to assess the environmental impacts before permission is given for the full scheme. The turbines designed by Lunar Energy will be built by Hyundai Heavy Industries and other partners.

More at: Telegraph.co.uk, Inhabitat

This entry was posted on Friday, March 21st, 2008 at 4:15 pm and is filed under Energy, Renewable Energy, Sustainability. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.