Here Comes Lunar Power

How fitting! Though if I have got my physics right, it is really the rotational energy of the earth that is being tapped by these schemes

A drama is unfolding in New York City's East River. This summer the Popsicles at a Gristedes supermarket on Roosevelt Island, midstream between Manhattan and Queens, will be kept icy by power generated just a stone's throw from the riverbank. Anchored 30 feet down, six underwater turbines will turn day and night, driven by the tidal flows in the channel. At a fish-friendly 35 rpm, the propellers will crank out up to 200 kilowatts of clean power, or roughly half the peak needs of the supermarket.

Projects like this one are still small fry. But hydropower, the granddaddy of green energy, is making a comeback. Think Hoover Dam, but less visible and a whole lot easier on the environment. This born-again breed of clean energy isn't yet on the agenda for George W. Bush, who is out barnstorming the nation on behalf of renewable power. The President is pointing to the earth for plant-based ethanol, to the sky for wind power, and to the sun for photovoltaics. But he should also be pointing to the moon, say fans of the new hydropower, and to the seas that lie below it. Tugged by lunar gravity and stirred by wind and currents, the oceans' tides and waves offer vast reserves of untapped power, promising more oomph than wind and greater dependability than solar power.

The appeal of next-generation hydropower is hard to miss. "It's local, reliable, renewable, and clean. Plus, it's out of sight," says Trey Taylor, president of Verdant Power LLC, the Arlington (Va.) startup developing the East River site. Adds Roger Bedard, ocean energy leader at the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), the industry's research-and- development arm: "Offshore wave and tidal power are where wind was 20 years ago, but they'll come of age faster." By 2010, Bedard predicts, the U.S. will tap about 120 megawatts of offshore wave energy -- enough to power a small city -- up from virtually zero today.

The planets are certainly in alignment for hydro. Prices for natural gas and coal are high, making renewables more cost-competitive. And in an effort to halt climate change and cut energy imports, 19 states have mandated that a share of their power come from green sources. Demand for alternatives is soaring: U.S. wind capacity surged by nearly 2,500 megawatts last year, up 35%, and solar is sizzling.

Wind and solar won't be able to satisfy all the green-power mandates. So more than two dozen companies worldwide are developing systems to unlock the power of waves and currents. The first to sell devices to a commercial project is Edinburgh's Ocean Power Delivery Ltd. Its Pelamis system is a snake-like steel tube that floats, semi-submerged, in the ocean.

In its Scottish factory, OPD is putting the finishing touches on three of these 400-foot-long machines. This summer they'll be towed to a site three miles off Portugal's northwest coast and hooked into the power grid. Lying low in the water, the snakes are invisible from a distance, unlike offshore wind farms that are causing "not in my backyard" complaints across the Atlantic, in Cape Cod. Initially the project will supply 2,500 kilowatts of juice, enough to run 1,500 Portuguese homes. OPD hopes to have 30 units at the site by 2008, pumping out enough current to power a town of 15,000 homes.

With its vast stretches of shoreline, the U.S. has some 2,300 terawatt-hours of potential near-shore wave power, estimates EPRI. That's more than eight times the yearly output of the nation's existing fleet of hydroelectric dams -- "a very significant resource," says Bedard. What's more, since water is heavier than air, marine systems pack a bigger punch than wind power. Because they work not by impounding rivers behind costly bulwarks but by tapping water's energy as it ebbs, flows, rises, or falls, upfront costs are lower than for dams. Maintenance to keep away barnacles and similar "biofouling" generally runs higher than for wind. Still, on balance, wave energy will evolve to be cheaper than wind was at similar levels of development, Bedard believes.

The power is more predictable, too. Unlike dam-based hydroelectric generators, which depend on rain or snowpack to keep current flowing and which shut down during droughts, newer "hydro- kinetic" systems exploit less capricious natural forces. "Lunar power" is the term offered by experts such as George Hagerman, a senior research associate at Virginia Tech and co-author of a recent EPRI marine-energy study. "You can't know if the wind will be up in an hour," he says, "but you can predict the tide 1,000 years from now."

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NEW SCARE: WATER SHORTAGES

Since global warming should INCREASE evaporation and hence precipitation, the reasoning has to be pretty devious. Making deserts green is the real "threat"

Across the world, they are coming: the water wars. From Israel to India, from Turkey to Botswana, arguments are going on over disputed water supplies that may soon burst into open conflict. Yesterday, Britain's Defence Secretary, John Reid, pointed to the factor hastening the violent collision between a rising world population and a shrinking world water resource: global warming. In a grim first intervention in the climate-change debate, the Defence Secretary issued a bleak forecast that violence and political conflict would become more likely in the next 20 to 30 years as climate change turned land into desert, melted ice fields and poisoned water supplies. Climate campaigners echoed Mr Reid's warning, and demanded that ministers redouble their efforts to curb carbon emissions.

Tony Blair will today host a crisis Downing Street summit to address what he called "the major long-term threat facing our planet", signalling alarm within Government at the political consequences of failing to deal with the spectre of global warming. Activists are modelling their campaign on last year's Make Poverty History movement in the hope of creating immense popular pressure for action on climate change.

Mr Reid used a speech at Chatham House last night to deliver a stark assessment of the potential impact of rising temperatures on the political and human make-up of the world. He listed climate change alongside the major threats facing the world in future decades, including international terrorism, demographic changes and global energy demand. Mr Reid signalled Britain's armed forces would have to be prepared to tackle conflicts over dwindling resources. Military planners have already started considering the potential impact of global warming for Britain's armed forces over the next 20 to 30 years. They accept some climate change is inevitable, and warn Britain must be prepared for humanitarian disaster relief, peacekeeping and warfare to deal with the dramatic social and political consequences of climate change.

Mr Reid warned of increasing uncertainty about the future of the countries least well equipped to deal with flooding, water shortages and valuable agricultural land turning to desert. He said climate change was already a contributory factor in conflicts in Africa. Mr Reid said: "As we look beyond the next decade, we see uncertainty growing; uncertainty about the geopolitical and human consequences of climate change. "Impacts such as flooding, melting permafrost and desertification could lead to loss of agricultural land, poisoning of water supplies and destruction of economic infrastructure. "More than 300 million people in Africa currently lack access to safe water; climate change will worsen this dire situation." .....

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ANOTHER REASON WHY THE GLOBAL-WARMING-WATER-WAR HYPE IS BUNKUM:

(From BBC News Online, 7 September 2004)

The solution to one of the thorniest problems in the Middle East may be taking shape on an anonymous-looking building site in south-west Israel. Private contractors are building what they call a "water factory". And they believe they may have found the Holy Grail, the Philosophers' Stone: an economical way to turn sea water into high quality drinking water.

It has become almost a cliche in the Middle East that the most divisive issue is not land, not oil, but water. In fact many experts believe water will be the cause of the next war in the region. So the prospect of limitless supplies of cheap drinking water has the engineers here very excited indeed. "Thinking about this concept of water factory, I think that the water problems, not only in the Middle East, but in the rest of the world can be solved, at comparatively competitive prices," enthused Gustavo Kronenberg, one of the engineers in charge of the project. "There is no problem of water, the problem is to get out the salt. There is plenty of water in the sea."

But the real problem until now has been the cost. Water desalination has been the technology of last resort, the Rolls-Royce solution for a rich desert kingdom like Saudi Arabia. Now this plant at Ashkelon, on Israel's Mediterranean coast, promises to provide water at around $0.52 a cubic metre. That's only marginally more expensive than the existing water costs in Israel. At the moment the water company provides supplies at around US $0.45 a cubic metre. The water from the new plant will be higher quality, and costs are coming down all the time. In fact costs are going down so fast that the makers are even discussing building desalination plants in rainy old England.

When it is finished next year the Ashkelon plant will produce 100 million cubic metres a year. That's roughly one seventh of the domestic water demand in Israel (excluding agriculture and industry).

The key to the success is a technology called "reverse osmosis". Essentially this involves water being pushed through a membrane or filter at a very high pressure. That high pressure means it uses a lot of energy. At the Ashkelon plant they have cut the costs by building their own power station as part of the unit. New technology recycles spare energy as part of the process. The membranes themselves are being continually upgraded to improve efficiency as well.......






A SCIENCE ADVISOR WHO KNOWS WHAT HE IS TALKING ABOUT

Australia's new chief scientist is an award-winning molecular plant science expert who preaches the benefits of genetically modified foods. After a nine-month search to fill the vacant post, CSIRO scientist Jim Peacock, 68, will take on the role of the nation's top adviser on science. Former chief scientist Robin Batterham resigned in May after a storm of controversy over his part-time role and claims of a conflict of interest with his private-sector employment as chief technologist at mining giant Rio Tinto.

Mr Peacock is almost certain to take on the job full-time after previously criticising Mr Batterham's part-time role. Described as one of the CSIRO's "living treasures", Mr Peacock led one of the organisation's most successful sections, the plant industry division, for 25 years. He has scotched arguments that GM crops could become eco-vandals by rejecting claims genes could "jump the fence" and infect neighbouring crops with GM-modified genes.

One of his passions is the secrets behind the genes that control when a plant flowers the key to developing GM crops. Last year, the agri-scientist warned that state government bans on the planting of GM canola crops were costing the economy hundreds of millions of dollars worth of exports. 'We can change our foods so that our most common staple foods will help guard against the onset of these diseases and will make a significant contribution to reducing the enormous expenditure of therapeutic medicine," he told the National Press Club at the time. "Diabetes is the epidemic of the 21st century. If the important starch component of these cereals had a low glycemic index, we would be a long way to reducing the incidence and severity of diabetes."

Mr Peacock was also a co-recipient of the inaugural Prime Minister's Science Prize in 2000 and is a member of the Prime Minister's Science, Engineering and Innovation Council. In 2004, Mr Peacock slammed the Howard Government's attempts to back money-spinning science at the expense of basic, "public good" research. As president of the Australian Academy of Science, Mr Peacock has also argued the position should be full-time to ensure the chief scientist could advise the government without any suggestion of bias.

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Many people would like to be kind to others so Leftists exploit that with their nonsense about equality. Most people want a clean, green environment so Greenies exploit that by inventing all sorts of far-fetched threats to the environment. But for both, the real motive is to promote themselves as wiser and better than everyone else, truth regardless.

Global warming has taken the place of Communism as an absurdity that "liberals" will defend to the death regardless of the evidence showing its folly. Evidence never has mattered to real Leftists

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