Summer Budget Travel Tips from Gadling

This or That?

CFLs or LEDs?

Read More

France ready to expand its tidal power

It's a pretty well-known fact that France is a world leader when it comes to nuclear energy, but what you probably haven't heard is that France actually built the world's first tidal power plant in 1966. Ironically, the "barrage" style La Rance plant has been criticized for year for damaging the environment -- still, they had the right idea.

Just this week, France's state-run power company Electricite de France announced plans for France to update is wave-harnessing capacity. Just off the coast of Brittany -- that's in France's northwest, if you were wondering -- EDF officials have begun a project to install 3-6 new underwater turbines by 2011 -- hopefully kicking off France's expansion into wave power.


Contrary to what you might assume, hydro-electric dams like the one used in France's first La Rance power plant, are generally damaging to the surrounding ecosystem. Instead of going with a dam concept, the new project will consist of free-floating turbines, anchored to the sea floor -- similar to what PG&E is doing in California.

EDF has yet to select a contractor to build the $42M tidal project, but they have said that they expect it to generate somewhere between 4-6MW. Compare that to La Rance's 240MW and you can see that the new project is designed as a pilot program. According to the EDF's Caroline Muller, "We are going to make some studies to check whether this kind of electricity production is viable, and reliable."

[via Earth2Tech]

Green Daily Video

Green Daily Series

Tip of the Day

Resist the stacks of napkins given from fast-food joints and eateries.

Celebrity and Entertainment
Celebrities (715)
Movies, TV and Books (343)
News and Politics
Activism (640)
Climate Change (582)
News (1494)
Plants and Wildlife (396)
Polit-eco (579)
Home, Health and Fashion
Fashion (487)
Fitness (117)
Food (991)
Health (634)
Home (1527)
Kids and Parenting (442)
Natural Body Care (205)
Gadgets, Tech and Transportation
Alternative Energy (651)
Cars and Transportation (818)
Gadgets and Tech (585)
Travel and Vacation (219)
Tips and Advice
Green on Campus (74)
Reference/Green 101 (93)
Shopping Guide (495)
This or That (58)
Tip of the Day (288)
Tips (439)

Green Daily bloggers (30 days)

#BloggerPostsCmts
1Cat Lincoln210
2Josh Loposer200
3Kristen Seymour10

Most Commented On (7 days)

Sites We Love