N.Y. Tests Turbines to Produce Power

But the capacity of the turbines is not the only stumbling block. There were years of environmental examining on the site, including an investment of more than $2 million to monitor the impact on fish and migratory birds. Both have avoided the big, clunky turbines thus far, Taylor said, but regulations require ongoing inspections.

The city needs new ways to generate energy considering existing transmission lines from upstate are inadequate and the city’s needs are growing, said James Gallagher, energy expert at the city’s Economic Development Corp.

“We need generation within the city, and anything we can add in terms of clean, efficient, new generation, has a value to it,” he said.

He and other analysts say tidal potential is a small piece of the city’s energy equation. In fact, New York is learning the rules of the game for its own make of urban sustainable energy production: The winds and waters of that port city can be harnessed, but only in positive places. Tidal potential is dependable, but small-scale. Wind potential is cheap but rare. Solar ability is unreliable, inconstant and expensive but easy to install.

Experts warn that before these

alternatives are widely adopted, New York will have to upgrade its antiquated grid system, which is currently incapable of incorporating a great deal of ability from multiple small sources.

The city’s peak energy consumption is 12,000 megawatts at any given moment, said Stephen Hammer, the director of the Urban Energy Program at Columbia University. “The question is, ‘What’s our goal? How much of that 12,000 megawatts total do we want to try to achieve? What kind of cost burden do we want to bear to achieve it?’

So far, support has been relatively strong on Roosevelt Island, the quiet community amoung Manhattan and Queens that is the project’s base. Developers began building that support in 2001, expanded before any installation, beginning with neighborhood meetings.

“I think it’s a great thing,” said Pia Doane, 63, speaking as she shopped for fruit at the Gristede’s supermarket the project powers. She said she’d rather live in view of a turbine than a smokestack, such as those at the massive potential plant just across the water, which she calls Asthma Alley. “This current has a big force,” she said. “We should use it.”

[Source] DForce