DailyDirt: Wind & Water Power

It's generally a worthwhile goal to diversify -- putting all your eggs in one basket is almost asking for trouble. So it's nice to see folks working on different ways to generate electricity that don't involve burning fossil fuels or dealing with the hassle of radioactive materials (not that there's anything wrong with that). There are a bunch of really interesting wind power and hydro power projects going on, but some can scale better than others. And some of these projects just look cool.

• A Michigan artist is testing out a hydro-powered generator that's modeled after a basking shark's mouth. This generator mimics the shark's mouth to help extract energy more efficiently... technically "infringing" on nature for this patent-pending design. [url]
• Arrays of piezoelectric cells could harness wind/water energy without using a turbine. Capturing vibrational energy, it's silent and doesn't kill birds/bats. And maybe analogous technology could be put on fault lines to get some electricity out of earthquakes.... [url]
• Deepwater Wind has a $4-5 Billion plan to put a wind farm about 20 miles off the coast of Massachusetts. Its electricity would cost about twice that from a fossil-fuel power plant, but about half that of photovoltaic solar. Maybe someday, electricity branded "CO2-free" will be worth the premium? [url]
• Underwater turbines could generate power without building a dam along the Mississippi River. As with all hydro-electric projects, though, there are still concerns about how turbines might affect wildlife and shipping regulations. [url]
• To discover more stuff on alternative energy, check out what's currently floating around the StumbleUpon universe. [url]  

As always, StumbleUpon can also recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

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