Energy forecast

With rising sea levels washing away inhabited islands such as Lohachara, (once home to 10,000 people) has driven major costal communities inland. The risk is faced with flooding and strong winds destroying homes and agriculture.

The world is in need of a new energy source to compensate for industrialised global warming. In the light of climate change, the world urgently needs to acquire different energy resources with the ability to deliver 'cleaner renewable energy'. One notable company has the potential to make a 'major' contribution to the future energy needs.

Marine current turbines (MCT), is the world leader in the development of new technology for exploring tidal currents for large-scale power generators. The turbines run with tides of renewable energy, producing no pollution and delivering to a predictable timetable. Marine turbines work, in similarity to submerged windmills, but are driven by flowing water rather than air. They are mainly installed in the sea at locations with high tidal currents. The water currents have a major advantage of being an energy resource, which is mostly 'predictable' as tides that cause them. It is more reliable than wind or wave energy that appear randomly based on the weather system. The technology consists of twin axial flow rotors of 15m to 20m in diameter, each driving a generator via a gearbox similar to a hydroelectric turbine or wind turbine. the twin power units are set into a hole drilled into the seabed. The submerged turbine, depending on the local flow pattern and peak velocity, will be grouped in arrays of wind farms under the sea. The same way wind turbines in a wind farm are set out in rows to catch the wind.

'Environmentalists have been notified that the new technology does not offer any serious threat to fish or marine mammals'. The rotor turns slowly in its place, compared to a ships propeller, typically runs 10 times as fast and moving continuously.

"Since the world is water based, why not harness energy from this big pool?"