Major tidal power plan revealed
Hundreds of jobs and heat for Prince Charles’ organic business in Caithness have been identified as spin offs from a proposed green energy project.
Tidal power developer Atlantis Resources Corporation confirmed it was considering a site near Castle of Mey for a computer data centre.
The plan – still in the early stages – would see the centre powered by a tidal scheme in the Pentland Firth.
US financial giant Morgan Stanley is a major shareholder in Atlantis.
First i should explain that what the British call a firth is like what we would call a sea straight. Pentland is known or notorious for the strength of its tides. In the most common tidal power schemes the oceans and the tides – stream systems – are used much like wind towers use the power of wind currents. The environmental impact is not zero, but most projects so far have had minimal impact. The concept isn’t new, both eastern and western cultures have been using tidal power for centuries.
Beluga whales are known to make expressions that resemble a smile and blow out puffs of air to create bubbles as a form of play. Like all whales they are quite intelligent. They can learn to recognize and act on verbal signals from humans and have been taught to make sounds to signal that they want something. They tend to like estuaries. Unfortunate in that estuaries in the U.S. are where much of the pollution from rivers ends and are highly trafficked by large vessels.
Beluga Whale Protection Bolstered; Palin Objects
The federal government on Friday placed beluga whales that live in Cook Inlet in Alaska on the endangered species list, rejecting efforts by Gov. Sarah Palin and others against increased protection.
The relatively small, whitish whales, sometimes visible from downtown Anchorage, declined by almost 50 percent in the late 1990s, and federal scientists say they have not rebounded despite a series of protections, including a halt to subsistence hunting by Alaska Natives. About 375 whales have been counted in Cook Inlet each of the last two years, according to scientists with the National Marine Fisheries Service.
“In spite of protections already in place, Cook Inlet beluga whales are not recovering,” James W. Balsiger, the acting assistant administrator for the fisheries agency, said in a written statement. The whales are in danger of extinction, Dr. Balsiger said.
[ ]…On Friday, Ms. Palin said the state had had “serious concerns about the low population of belugas in Cook Inlet for many years,” but she called the listing “premature.” Her administration challenged the federal government’s data, as it did with the polar bear decision.
tangledwing 