There's an article on putting turbines in the gulf stream for power generation.

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hA5dUTyeCiSKpIJVm2VyDegLPQiQD8UQ9R 5O0

This seems like a potentially great idea, but since I'm a contrarian, I worry about the midwater and deep benthic cephs and the planktonic stuff... in particular, I'm reminded of Steve's concerns about planktonic egg masses. I wonder if planktonic things tend to avoid the high flows of the major currents, or lose with or without turbines if they drift into them, or if they're commonly pulled in... it seems like squids don't like to get on express currents that take them away from their preferred environments, so maybe they tend to avoid placing egg masses in currents that will take them long distances?

I heard about something like this last summer at an aquarium I think in Baltimore. The display and model showed the generaters can also be used as a means to stop or slow hurricanes. Don't quote me on this, but I believe they slowed the hurricanes by closing up doors that lead into the generators which disrupts the flow of the current around it. The idea was to have enough of them in the path of the hurricane and enough rows of them to disrupt the water flow and through that the eye of the hurricane causing it to break down. So when there were no hurricanes they would generate power, when there were hurricanes they would be disaster stoppers.

From my understanding of the idea, it would require far to many generators to be practical, and wouldnt disrupting the flow of the gulf stream cause some other environmental problems?

We could put some of them over R'lyeh. Think of the energy.

We could put some of them over R'lyeh. Think of the energy.

UMMMMMMMM..............:?::?::?::?::?::? ::?::?::?::?::?:

Bad idea. I think this is exactly how the seaQuest was destroyed.

There's an article on putting turbines in the gulf stream for power generation.


There are plans to put some of these in Cook Strait (the one between NZs oh so imaginatively named North and South Islands). I always get a bit nervous when people start talking about harnessing 'free' energy' in ways like this.