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Tidal Energy and the Methods to Harness It Essay

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Tidal Energy and the Methods to Harness it
Introduction:
The world is in a crisis. Traditional energy sources such as oil, coal, and natural gas are dwindling at an alarming rate. Governments are struggling to purchase those resources in enough volume to feed their citizens. It is becoming abundantly clear that something needs to be done to meet, and eventually surpass current energy demands. One of the resources that is essentially unlimited is a resource called Tidal Energy. Tidal Energy has been estimated that it can create 2110 terrawatt-hours in the United States (7) alone. That is an astonishing amount of energy.

Tidal Energy: Tidal energy is a form of energy that is formed when water rises and falls due to the gravitational …show more content…

Basically this technology is floating spheres at the bottom of the ocean floor that move back and forth with waves, capturing the kinetic energy as it moves and generates electricity. This technology operates all the time and doesn’t totally depend on the time of day to really work. Others are sunk turbines which catch the energy as water flows through them. This technology is probably the fastest growing technology because of the fact that it has no current environmental impacts. These technologies don’t trap silt and are easily avoidable by the local wildlife and merchant ships. Also the material needed to build these tidal farms is much less than it would be to build a wind farm because water us much more dense making it easier for a smaller turbine to catch and change the kinetic energy into power that we can use. (1,2,3,4) There is also a type of technology called a tidal lagoon that companies and governments are looking at utilizing to help produce energy. They function very similar to barrages, except they don’t need an inlet to work. These can be made along the coastlines of islands and countries. They look a lot like little harbors stretching across the coastline. These also don’t even need to be made using artificial building materials, which cuts back on the costs of building them. The process is the same as barrages, the sea rushes in and is held back at high tide. Then at low tide the water is allowed to rush over turbines turning them and generating

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