Poseidon Floating Power Plant Works Above and Below Water
One of the oldest ways to harvest energy from nature is the windmill. Using the never-ending (yet inconsistent) supply of wind power, human beings learned to construct mills that would grind up their grains or perform other labor-intensive jobs for them. Other mills used river currents to power their machinery. Through time, these technologies became antiquated, replaced by gasoline-driven engines.
Now, in an effort to save the environment which we have been so ruthlessly exploiting for so many years, human beings are returning to the same technologies that first gave us the power to build civilization into what it is today. Windmills and other alternate types of energy generating technologies are become more prevalent, and many companies are coming up with new concepts on how to modernize what is essentially a centuries-old idea.
Denmark based Floating Power Plant is one such company. Using the same sort of stabilizing technology that can be found in oil rigs, they have designed a floating contraption that harvests both wind energy and the energy of sea currents. Called the Poseidon, it is a 230-meter (754 foot) platform that floats offshore, generating both wave and wind energy. Aside from using the aforementioned technology that keeps oil rigs afloat, the platform weighs about 350 tons, so it would be difficult to move or jar in any way.
It's estimated to provide 50 gigawatts of power per year, and will only use up about 11 cents per kilowatt hour.
So history does repeat itself in this case, although it's obvious that this is a vast improvement.
Source: Inhabitat via Engadget
