What is that thing in the east channel, anyway?

It's a “turbine evaluation vessel.”

Sixth-graders got an explanation this week that even an adult could understand:  The sun pours massive amounts of energy onto planet Earth daily, driving a water cycle that keeps rivers flowing.  The moon contributes a gravity effect that creates tides and, specifically of interest here, a strong tidal effect in the East River.  With turbines (shaped like propellers), you can capture the energy of those flows to generate electricity.  And that thing in the east channel is a test and demonstration of how efficiently and economically that can be done.

Trey Taylor, President of Verdant Power, flattered and charmed the sixth-grade class at PS 217 into learning something general about power production and pollution, and something specific about what his company is doing in a pilot program based here.

“I don't think I've ever seen a class that looks as smart as this one,“ Taylor said.  “I'm glad to be able to talk to you today about a special way to produce electricity.”  To a group accustomed to flipping switches or turning on computers and taking electricity for granted, Taylor pointed out that there are some two billion people in the world who live their lives without electric power.

“How is electricity produced?“ he asked, begining to draw a diagram on the whiteboard in PS 217's computer lab.  “It can be very complicated and expensive.  In the most primary way, electricity is made by boiling water and producing steam, and when the steam flows through a pipe it turns a turbine – a blade.  The blade turns a big generator, which produces electricity.  That electricity goes into the wires, and into your homes.”

Pointing at the “boiling“ end of the diagram, Taylor asked, “What do we burn to boil the water?“  The class produced a series of answers:  “Coal.“  “Wood.“  Prompted, someone added, “Oil,“ and someone else, “Gas.“  Another named the general category:  “Fossil fuels.”

“Do you know what the problem is with these, when you're burning these fossil fuels?”

“It pollutes,“ one girl responded.  “Right,“ Taylor said.  “When you burn these fuels, there are emissions.  They pollute the air and contribute to a global phenomenon.  Do you know what that is?“  Hinting at global warming, Taylor got answers like “acid rain,“ and “damages the ozone layer.”

“That's a good place to start,“ he said.  “The emissions create a layer of 'greenhouse gases' that capture the sun's heat and won't let enough of it go.  The consequence is that the planet starts to get warmer, and glaciers start melting.“  Bringing the matter home, Taylor asked, “And if the glaciers are melting, do you know what's going to happen to Roosevelt Island?“  “Flooding,“ someone said, and Taylor quickly reassured the class about the time scale:  “Maybe a thousand years from now, water could cover the Island.”

With the case made for environmentally-benign power sources, Taylor went on to describe what his company is doing now toward a longer-range effort to harness the infinitely-renewable power in the tides of the east channel of the East River.

“The whole world is working toward 'alternative energies' using natural resources, to stop burning fossil fuels.  We call those alternative energies 'renewable,' because they cycle all the time.“  Drawing a radiating Sun on the whiteboard, he asked, “What's the biggest source of energy we've got?”

“Solar power,“ one child responded.  “Right!“ said Taylor.  “The sun produces air currents – wind.  In many places, they're using wind power to make electricity.  And how the wind power works is that they're shortcutting the process.  We're not burning anything.  There are no emissions.  It's a turbine – a big propeller turning in the wind, cranking a generator, making electricity.”

He then drew the logical connection between wind-driven turbines and those capturing the power of falling water in dams, but pointed out that there are negative environmental consequences from damming rivers – loss of farmland and trees and, in the case of the Three Gorges project in China, loss of human, animal, and fish habitat, as well as the history embodied in antiquities.

“So my company is doing a test right out here in the East River.  It's the first of its kind in the world, and so we're making history out here.”

“It's called tidal power,“ a child interjected.  “Yes!  Thank you very much,“ Taylor responded.  ”I knew this was a smart class.

”There's a new form of energy that's very similar to wind – to put a turbine in the moving currents of the river or ocean, and what we have out here, with the support of New York State, is a working prototype.  If this works well, the next stage is to put six slightly larger ones completely under water, so, as they're producing power for Roosevelt Island, you won't even see them.  The blades turn slowly, and fish can move around them.  And so, it is truly another source of power.

“Remember those two billion people I told you about?  This makes it very easy for them to put this in their rivers and streams to generate electricity, and it has hardly any environmental impact.”  Taylor then turned to an animation running on his computer, showing how the raft anchored in the East River – now towed away while the company prepares for the next stage of the test – can raise and lower the turbine blade during this testing phase.

“Part of what we're doing out there is examining the velocities of the water.  In energy talk, when you establish a number of generators, you have an 'installed capacity.'  With wind, it runs about 27 to 32 percent of the time, but tidal hydro goes about 40 to 42 percent of the time, allowing for slack tide [as in the East River].  But if you're in big rivers, you have an 80 to 90 percent capacity factor, going 24 hours a day.”

The next stage of the Verdant Power project, after further evaluation of the data they've captured on their “turbine evaluation vessel,” will be that six-pack of turbines that could go into the water less than a year from now, potentially followed by an underwater field of 500, all invisible and quietly generating electricity.  As envisioned, the turbines would be well below the surface, so that boats might pass over them.  In a full installation, there might be a floating dry-dock that could service the units.

The PS 217 class then took a walking field trip to the promenade behind Eastwood, where they could look out over the water at the strange structure that houses not only Verdant Power's test turbine, but also a “dummy load” that dissipates the electricity produced, and measuring equipment that captures information on the speed of water and how much of the flow is captured by the turbines.

“What you see here is not only a first,“ Taylor told the class, “but it's a brand-new industry.  With it come new sciences and new studies, so it could become a wonderful field, in the sciences, to be involved in.”

Later on Friday, Verdant Power personnel ferried a stream of VIPs, including Assemblymember Pete Grannis and RIOC Board member Patrick Stewart, out to the evaluation vessel.  On shore, Taylor provided more background on the project.

“The data is exceeding our expectations,“ he said.  ”What's being proposed out here would produce ten megawatts of power.  One of these, in the ten-foot size, would produce about 25 kilowatts of power, which would take care of 25 homes.  The bigger ones [a 16-foot blade] could produce as much as 40 or 50 kilowatts for 40 or 50 homes.  A ten-megawatt 'farm' of 500 turbines could power about 10,000 average homes.

“We've learned about the fish, the sea turtles, the cormorants that are diving out there...  The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has given us the room to be really flexible so that we can study and build very slowly, the key reason being that, if we encounter any problem along the way, we can reverse course.”

A third of the funding for Verdant Power's project is coming from NYSERDA, the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority; investors supply the rest.  Verdant Power's next step, in nine months to a year, will be to put those six slightly larger units fully under water, anchored to the bottom of the river, with an array of monitoring equipment.

Click here for ao related report; Verdant Power maintains a website at www.verdantpower.com, with a link to a description of the East River project at Initiatives.