Underwater Turbines No Match for NYC's East River.

1. johnald
   August 14th, 2007 at 1:45 pm

   they could do with grills around them, pretty damn dangerous to anything in the river. or maybe i'm just missing something.

2. L
   August 14th, 2007 at 2:04 pm

   If the current is that powerful, think of the energy that could be generated once they figure out how to solve the problem!

3. TJ Colatrella
   August 14th, 2007 at 2:42 pm

   Haven't you ever wondered why we New Yorkers in the City and Upstate pay so much for electric power while living many of us right alongside one of the nations most powerful rivers..?

   Here in Ulster County many of us have Central Hudson Electric and Gas, but they are unaware that this company is the very one which in Court established "Personhood" for corporations..!

   That was a black day for each and every American and it's gone down hill ever since..!

   We must as a nation Nationalize all Energy the Electric companies and also the Oil Industry until we do this there will be no solution for our current economic, environmental, and political problems..!

   By doing this we could cut energy costs in America by 30-33% and also have from oil alone %60 billion each year every year for this type of alternative energy development and exploration the energy infrastructure so much even perhaps eventually Fusion..

   New engine designs and development and this is also a true National Security issue and requirement for the future..!

   Remember the Oil companies are not in the business of putting themselves out of business..!

   We could also have the money to develop true really clean coal with all these billions coming into such efforts as well as cut costs by 30%, thus create an economic Boom that would benefit every American across the board..!

   There's more to this but it's time to start talking it up..!

4. Sid Morrison
   August 14th, 2007 at 2:57 pm

   Unlike most kooky forms of alternative energy (like photovoltaic solar cells), the underwater turbine idea (river or tidal) has some merit. If they can make it work without government welfare (subsidies, research $, or taxing of their competition), than it is worth exploring. If private $ is interested in doing it w/o government teat involved, it usually makes sense. If they need government teat to make it fly, it was stupid to do in the first place.

   Straight talk from Sid.

5. TG
   August 14th, 2007 at 3:40 pm

   Why don't they just use wind turbines in front Hillary Clinton's mouth?

6. L
   August 14th, 2007 at 8:53 pm

   I don't know, TG. We could also put some behind your ass. Would that help?

7. linuxamp
   August 15th, 2007 at 7:25 am

   I'm no civil engineer but these look more like wind turbines. I would think that fluid turbines would look more like boat/submarine propellers rather than airplane propellers. Fluid propellers may have more mass but should be stronger and with the river's strength, the additional mass should not be much of an issue.

8. Sid Morrison
   August 15th, 2007 at 10:23 am

   linuxamp -
   Well, you may not be a civil engineer, but the issues involved don't pertain to civil engineering anyhow... it's Mechanical Engineering or Aeronautical Engineering, ME's fluid mechanics-heavy brother. The turbine design resembles a wind turbine because the goals are similar. Air and water are BOTH fluids (fluid liquid).

   The design is more influenced by the expected tip speed and available real estate. On a boat, the propshaft turns very very fast (much too fast for a big diameter prop) and available real estate under the boat is limited anyhow. The situation is different with these guys. Also, efficiency is much more important here than with a typical propellor design as well (big slow turbines can be very efficient). Furthermore, these guys can be optimized to have a much more narrow band of operation. A boat prop, by its nature, will see a greater variation in its rotational speed.

   Don't lose sleep over this ... Something tells me that the people who design these things use some high powered computational fluids dynamics modeling packages to get the design pretty good.

9. Sid Morrison
   August 15th, 2007 at 4:30 pm

   hmmm... In my last posting "(fluid liquid)" (in the first paragraph) is supposed to say "fluid" does not equal "liquid". I had the less-than and greater-than symbols in there but the posting s/w drops them out... must think they are control characters for HTML or something...

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