Underwater Kite Turbine Generates Electricity from Ocean Currents



A Swedish start-up company called Minestro is developing a system for harvesting energy from ocean currents. "Deep Green" consists of kites and turbines anchored to the ocean floor:

When operational, the turbine is expected to generate 500 kilowatts of power.

One of the big advantages of their technology, Minesto executives say, is its small size -- 12 meters for the wingspan and one meter for the turbine -- relative to other tidal-energy designs. [...]

The company hope to begin trials of a scale model in 2011 at Strangford Lough, in County Down, Northern Ireland -- which is already home to a commercial tidal power device operated by UK renewable energy company, SeaGen.


Link via DVICE | Company Website | Video

The problem with anything like this is corrosion, you can't have anything working in salt water very lang that moves without it getting all stuck up.
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The companies that come up with great concepts like this get a hard cold dose of reality in the face when they actually try to build something and find out what a bitch Mother Nature in the ocean can be.
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gryt - one needs to look at the positives as well as the negatives when considering anything, such as "green" energy.

For instance, some argue that we (the USA) should use windmills to lower our dependency on foreign oil. However, the rare-earth elements used in windmills are almost all in China (source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/23/AR2010042302220.html )
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This is not a new idea,, not even an innovation. ( See USPTO INventor - Philippe Vauthier and check the web site at http://uekus.com)
The originators have not been given credit and the description of the technology has been taken in part from the trademark of UEK - Underwater Electric Kite. They are intellectually dishonest.
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