World’s Largest Tidal Turbine Successfully Installed

Via Digg.

The world’s largest tidal turbine, weighing 1000 tonnes, has been installed in Northern Ireland’s Strangford Lough. The tidal turbine is rated at 1.2 megawatts, which is enough to power a thousand local homes. It was built by Marine Current Turbines, and it will be the first commercial tidal turbine to produce energy.

Looks like a fantastic idea to me.
Famously both the Thames a Severn are significantly tidal, so if this is truly successful it would be well-worth exploiting there too.
As it's on a post it could also be an answer to the environmentalists concerns about traditional tidal barrages - that they block the flow of mud and silt and so destroy wetland habitats.

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