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Assessing the environmental effects of tidal turbines

December 13, 2010 Enlarge

UW researchers brave rough conditions in February to lower the monitoring tripod into the water. Credit: University of Washington

Harnessing the power of ocean tides has long been imagined, but countries are only now putting it into practice. A demonstration project planned for Puget Sound will be the first tidal energy project on the west coast of the United States, and the first array of large-scale turbines to feed power from ocean tides into an electrical grid.