Underwater windmills might provide energy alternative

We can complain all we want to about soaring prices at the pump.  But until we find some other alternative besides drilling our way out of this real energy crisis, like what many Congressional Republicans want to do in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, our military will continuously be needed to defend our strategic oil interests.

What we need is a revolution of new ideas about energy.  Some companies, such as Verdant Power, are rising to the occasion.  Verdant is investing money on an experiment that will be conducted in the East River between Manhattan and Queens, NY.  The energy experiment will involve underwater windmills.

David Ho of Cox Communications' Washington Bureau wrote about the experiment, and how Verdant believes underwater windmills will be even more effective than dams:

As consumers worry over an uncertain energyfuture, a Virginia company is eyeing an unusual untapped power source:the rivers of the Big Apple.

Within weeks, Verdant Power plans to submerge experimental turbinesin the East River off the coast of Roosevelt Island, a slice of landsqueezed between Manhattan and Queens.

Resembling and working much like stout underwater windmills, the six15-foot-tall turbines will draw energy from tidal currents to power anearby supermarket and parking garage.

The company calls the project the first to use multiple underwaterturbines to create usable power. Backers say the technology couldultimately provide a reliable, environmentally friendly and largelyinvisible solution to many global energy needs.

"It's very, very green energy," said Dean Corren, the company'sdirector of technology development. "There's a lot of energy in thatflowing water. Our goal is to capture a small amount of that."

Traditional hydropower from dams, where water is trapped at a highlevel and released, provides about 7 percent of the nation'selectricity, but worries over damaging river environments and harmingmigrating fish have hindered new development.

The "hydro-kinetic" or "in-stream" technology works by submergingturbines into the natural path of moving water, such as a river, canalor deep ocean current.

"Fish and marine mammals can easily swim around," said GeorgeHagerman, a Virginia Tech researcher who co-authored a study onin-stream energy issued this month. "It doesn't have anywhere near theimpact of a dam."

So not only would these underground windmills provide energy, but they don't harm the wildlife.  This is just one example of how valuable various kinds of water-based technology are to unlocking the solution to our growing energy need. 

Certainly, for many reasons, oil companies have an invested interest in preventing this sort of technology from taking hold.  That is why pro-oil advocates like Michael Crichton are being propped up by industry strategists, as was the case after he wrote the anti-environmental book "State of Fear" , to calm recent reactions to both the energy crisis and global warming.  That is why progressives need to give kudos to green companies, such as Verdant, who are trying to give America a clean way out of this current energy predicament.