“Lunar Power” comes to New York
`This summer a Gristedes store on Roosevelt Island in New York will get half of its power from six tide-powered turbines in the East River. Unlike dam-based hydroelectric generators, which depend on rain or snowpack to keep current flowing and which shut down during droughts, newer “hydro- kinetic” systems exploit less capricious natural forces. “Lunar power” is the term offered by experts such as George Hagerman, a senior research associate at Virginia Tech and co-author of a recent EPRI marine-energy study. “You can’t know if the wind will be up in an hour,” he says, “but you can predict the tide 1,000 years from now.” “It’s local, reliable, renewable, and clean. Plus, it’s out of sight,” says Trey Taylor, president of Verdant Power LLC, the Arlington (Va.) startup developing the East River site.’
