power sourced from water currents

There has been a release of more data that shows harnessing the flow of rivers and the ocean, we can generate electricity on a level that could power the homes of many billions of people.

Systems could be sited on river beds or suspended in the ocean. The scientists behind the technology, which has been developed in research funded by the US government, say that generating power in this way would potentially cost only around 3.5p per kilowatt hour, compared to about 4.5p for wind energy and between 10p and 31p for solar power. They say the technology would require up to 50 times less ocean acreage than wave power generation.

I think that this news continues to be very promising. But, I am also at the point where I am tired of the talk and want more action. So, let’s start seeing these revolutionary devices built and creating electricity and the levels they are expecting.

You can find the latest article, HERE, via The Telegraph

In our history, our oceans have seen times where it was more acidic than basic. The transition, however, occurred over many thousands of years. Science points to the acidification happening again, but this time happening very, very quickly.

Of course, since we have never seen this before, we do not know what the effect will be on marine life or human life.

“More than anything, it’s the rate of change that has scientists worried. It’s one thing to add a big load of carbon dioxide to the ocean over a few millennia, quite another to shock the ocean by adding a similar amount in just a few centuries. “We do not know with certainty what the consequences will be,” says Ken Caldeira, a climate expert with the Carnegie Institution Department of Global Ecology at Stanford University. “But we are now adding carbon so fast that, chances are, the disturbance to the ocean will be even more extreme.”

click HERE for the article.

There is one treaty we have all agreed on… presumably not under the Bush Administration… la dee da, la dee da…. anyway.

The United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) is the world’s most widely endorsed environmental treaty. In it many countries have agreed, that by 2010, we will conserve 10% of the worlds ecological regions.

Relatively speaking, it seems we are doing well when it comes to land. Not so well when it comes to the sea. While 12.2% of the planet’s land area is under legal protection only 5.9% of the world’s territorial seas and less than 1% of the high seas are protected.

HERE is the article. This may be a good opportunity to support Heal the Bay or Oceana