Japan plans to plunge a giant turbine into the sea to harness energy from ocean currents

A three-and-a-half-year test of a prototype device that generates power from ocean currents has ended. Japan wants to use a full-scale version of it to generate electricity by moving water masses.

More than 70 percent of Earth’s surface is covered by water. More than 96 percent of Earth’s water is in the oceans. This vast mass of liquid is not stationary. It is moved by the gravitational influence of the Moon, which causes Earth’s water to move regularly in the form of tides. And then there are ocean currents: great circulations of seawater caused by the Earth’s rotation, constant winds, and temperature differences.

This all suggests that ocean waters could be good sources of renewable energy. If we can extract energy from moving air — that is, from winds — we should be able to do the same with water. But harnessing the energy of sea currents, tides and waves is still in its infancy. The technology needed to do this is, for the time being, used on a small scale.

A test of one of these was conducted in Japan. IHI Corporation has been working for more than a decade on a device that would work under the ocean’s surface. The result is a 330-ton prototype called Kairyu. Translated, the word means “ocean current.”

The device consists of a massive 20-meter hull, to the sides of which are attached two cylinders. Each of them contains power generators equipped with eleven-meter turbines.

Kairyu works 50 meters below the water surface, attached to the ocean floor. There it can change its position in relation to the current so that the movement of the water masses drives the turbines.

Japan has a long tradition of using low-carbon energy sources. But the Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster in 2011 made nuclear…

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