Slide Show: Could the Gulf Stream Provide Florida with Renewable Energy?
Florida Atlantic University researchers study how much of a punch the waterway's powerful current might provide
Slide Show: Could the Gulf Stream Provide Florida with Renewable Energy?
- BUILDING A NATIONAL LAB, UNDERWATER: When the researchers are able to test their underwater turbine (whose blades are 35 feet, or 10 meters, in diameter), it will be anchored to the ocean bottom and connected to a buoy floating on the surface to keep it in place... © CENTER FOR OCEAN ENERGY TECHNOLOGY, FLORIDA ATLANTIC UNIVERSITY
- LAST MINUTE MAINTENANCE: Shirley Ravenna, a COET engineer, prepares the ADCP equipment for its deep dive. The Gulf Stream flows north by northeast about 15 miles (25 kilometers) off Florida's southern and eastern shores at a rate of more than eight billion gallons (30 billion liters) per second... © CENTER FOR OCEAN ENERGY TECHNOLOGY, FLORIDA ATLANTIC UNIVERSITY
- RED TAPE: COET's project could be slowed down by federal permitting procedures and policies. The Obama administration recently gave the U.S. Department of the Interior's Minerals Management Service (MMS) control of offshore wind and solar projects, including the power to issue leases and easements for wave and ocean current energy development... © CENTER FOR OCEAN ENERGY TECHNOLOGY, FLORIDA ATLANTIC UNIVERSITY
- SIGNALED BY SONAR: The orange Styrofoam ADCPs—about as big as a "good-sized FitBall" used for exercise, Hanson says—communicate with the surface using acoustic modems (much like computers used to connect to networks by translating analog signals carried by phone lines into digital ones they recognize)... © CENTER FOR OCEAN ENERGY TECHNOLOGY, FLORIDA ATLANTIC UNIVERSITY
- FINGERS CROSSED: COET recently received authorization from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers under a nationwide permit to deploy the ADCPs in the Atlantic Ocean. If everything goes according to plan, the researchers hope to have their test turbine in the water this fall... © Center for Ocean Energy Technology, Florida Atlantic University
