sci.energy.hydrogen

07/02/2007 (CNA)

Taipei, July 2 (CNA) The government is now discussing the possibility
of large-scale ocean current power generation, using the strong
Kuroshio current off the east coast of Taiwan to generate up to
trillion kilowatt-hours per year, officials at cabinet-level Council
for Economic Planning and Development (CEPD) said Monday.

The project task force, led by Chen Fa-lin -- director of Energy and
Environment Research Laboratory under Hsinchu-based Industrial
Technology Research Institute, is currently working on fine-tuning the
guidelines, which will be presented to CEPD senior officials in August
or September.

After the project is green-lighted, the possible first step should be
setting up a five-megawatt marine turbine off Taiwan's east coast on a
trial basis, with the goal of testing both related technologies and
power-generating efficiency, CEPD officials, adding that hopefully,
the project can enter the next stage in three years.

"Current power generation is not a new idea, " officials noted.
"Countries like Britain, Canada, Norway, and Australia all have
experience in deploying offshore marine turbines with capacities
ranging from one megawatt to eight megawatts to support the
electricity demand of hundreds to thousands of households."

"The problem is not the technology itself but how to locate a suitable
site -- with a current strong enough, an undersea shelf not too deep,
and a distance short enough to achieve power supply efficiency," they
added.

However, they explained that based on the surveys done by National
Taiwan University (NTU) , the sea area of some 6,000 square kilometers
between the eastern county of Taitung and the outlying Green Island in
the Pacific Ocean appears to meet all the requirements, and that the
maximum potential capacity there exceeds trillion kilowatt- hours
per year -- while Taiwan's current annual demand of electricity is
only about 98 billion kilowatt-hours.

According to the estimates of the project task force, a given site of
25 square kilometers located in the "shallow, high-speed zone" could
support the deployment of 1,000 one-megawatt marine turbines, which
would have a peak capacity of 1,000 megawatts: equal to the output of
Taiwan's second nuclear power plant.

Chen, the project leader, noted that once the turbines enter
commercial operation, Taiwan's existing coal power plants could be
retired, while the nuclear power generators could be used as a backup
system -- thereby resulting in a great reduction in Taiwan's total
carbon dioxide emissions. (By Zep Hu)