Gulf Stream Turbines has developed a turbine system it says could produce electricity continuously from the ocean current running from the Gulf of Mexico and up the US Atlantic Coast.
Thousands of the machines could be generating electricity from the current off the coast of South Florida, it suggested.
The firm says its system would not generate intermittent energy, as most other forms of wind, wave or tidal energy turbines do.
It says its device could operate near to its theoretical capacity to produce between two and six times the electricity output compared to a wind turbine – at “one half to one-sixth the cost”.
The firm’s website suggests that the system would involve capital costs of between $2,000 and $2,500 per kW of operating capacity.
The company believes a $750,000 to $1 million investment will be needed to finalize research and development, tooling and design, and that $8 million to $10 million will be needed to build and test a full-scale prototype.
John Robson, the inventor of the technology, said: “Because these submersible power plants will be in the ocean, they must be able to operate for long periods without requiring servicing. This is made possible by relying on the unchanging laws of physics – rather than on mechanical systems that can fail.”
Depths
The Gulf Stream turbine is designed to float below the surface of the water, at depths that could be easily changed by transferring ballast water between front and rear buoyancy tanks to adjust the unit’s hydrofoils.
The company says a single Gulf Stream Turbine unit would be equipped with two 600-kilowatt generators, and could theoretically produce almost 9 million kilowatt hours of power each year.
It would operate in the Gulf Stream at 85% of its maximum capacity, the firm said.
Gulf Stream Turbines, which was formed in 2009, claimed its device would produce earnings that would “substantially exceed those of the other renewable energy generating systems”.
Source: http://www.brighterenergy.org/6846/news/marine-hydro/gulf-stream-turbine-inventors-seek-investors/
