Mighty Mississippi to Power 1.5 Million Homes
by Stacy Feldman - Apr 2nd, 2008
If Free Flow Power Corporation gets its way, that is.
The company claims that for $3 billion it can fertilize the Mississippi river bed with 160,000 small electric turbines and churn out 1,600 MW of clean electricity from the river’s flows.
That’s enough juice to power a million and a half homes. And it says it can do it at a price that’s competitive with fossil fuels -- maybe even by 2012.
Free Flow Power Corp is one of the many new companies rushing into the budding world of hydrokinetic power. It’s the hot new breed of hydropower that produces electricity from river currents, ocean waves and tides -- not dams.
And the mighty Mississippi has become one of the most appealing spots for developers.
Free Flow Power has a leg up on its competitors though. The Federal Energy Regulatory (FERC) has already started to grant the company preliminary permits to study 59 sites that would house its turbines. And with that green light from FERC comes a giant advantage: the exclusive right to evaluate the sites for a full three years.
In a wide-open, competitive field like hydrokinetic energy that’s a huge boon. And at $3 billion, Free Flow Power may not only be the first to tap the Mississippi for power, but its project could end up being a real bargain too.
Compare that $3 billion with the construction costs of the Ely Energy Center, the new coal-fired energy complex that’s being built in Nevada. It boasts a comparable generating capacity of 1,500 MW, but it's going to cost over 65 percent more to get off the ground -- $5 billion for dirty energy.
And that doesn’t include the future cots the facility is bound to incur.
The coal complex is expected to spew some 11.5 million tons of CO2 emissions each year, which is sure to to carry a hefty price tag under the federal government's coming climate regulations.
Source: St. Louis Patch Dispatch
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