Call it silly, but I always respect the Finnish for a number of reasons. The Finns were the first nation to pay back all their war debts, and in an elective class I took on breadbaking, our instructor gave us a recipe for Finnish Cardamom braid bread. It became a staple in my home in which we raised 2 children, my baby sister, and a nephew on, with a couple of minor changes to using whole Roman meal and honey in the recipe. Also, the Finnish have a special reverence for nature that is totally world class. Now, if we could just get some Finnish wisdom for both economic responsibility and ecological responsibility, this world could rock again.
The trouble with putting those turbines down into the depths for free tidal energy resources is the honing animals their vibrations would confuse and nonchary more amphibious species their blades would decimate. We should not put our comfort over eliminating dozens of rare species from the depths of the sea, who give humans a good source of protein that is heart-healthy, and who knows what other good use they could be to planetary health if wisely harvested, with my apologies to nutritionally marginal vegans. I'm saying that, because the maories who live on islands in the southern pacific have found a clam that cures arthritis in only one or two applications.
We could be a more gracious specie and respect others, although we have the power to destroy them if we choose carelessness as our bedfellow.
I do apreciate those gracious comments, Freedombecki - not often we see compliments paid on this board!!
I totally agree with you about tidal power, and the project I have been following since I lived in New Zealand (linked below) is struggling to find the balance between production and damaging sea life. Vibration is one issue, but the other is the sheer size of the blades. At 18 metres across they can cut a shark in half. I suspect the answer is in covering them with a layer of nets of some kind to keep sea life above them.
Tidal power - Crest Energy
Thank you for the link, Saigon, which does not mention it could cut a shark or a migratory whale into smithereens. It also claims silence and invisibility, but the way they say it it sounds like it's only out of people's notice, and not the honing animals whose lives are ordered by radar. Also, it has 200 killing stations, which it euphemized as "locations."
I hope you will listen to our financial men here, although it's easier to get lost in the enthusiasm for green sources that wind up doing more damage to the environment than coal, gas, or other fossil fuels. Also in order to procure funds, many of the green enterprises resort to hedging the realities of their ideas in euphemisms rather than in certainly dead animals who become ensnared or confused by the particular technology that ignores their existence.
Keep in mind, our financial sector is comprised of very bright mathematicians, many of whom are renaissance persons in their own right, pointing out actual facts that can be proven correct.
For example, one volcano can cover a quarter of the earth in emissions in less than a week, causing a lot more of the same problem big cities like Los Angeles have with smog from auto emissions, except only locally. People only notice stuff that is smelly. I lived in Oregon when Mt. St. Helens erupted and saw a fraction of ash lightly coating cars the next day, less than 100 miles south, and I'm here to tell you there was no odd smell. In a few months, it was forgotten. Had there been an odor, it would have gotten people's worried attention. Quite a few people died on the mountain thinking they would be exempt from getting trapped by a volcano. Unfortunately, the eruption was so violent it relocated a lake and lowered areas of the mountain's top to rearrange the skyline for miles around. All that stuff went up into the air, causing particulates over a huge area that basically floated east or north, away from us, although we got a little fallout. More stuff went into the air than all the cars ever built, a couple of sources claimed.
So blaming mankind may bring money to scientists trying to do a project, but it just is not factual that man causes more pollution than our own earth. In fact, if you look at the stats, mankind's contribution to the real atmosphere is measured in 6 one-thousands of a percent range. The real viper in any climate change is mother nature.
I'm sorry we're slow to fully fund science without a lot of braggadocio, but dividing the entire financial sector who love the earth as much than green claimants will be hard-pressed to move until they see figures proving otherwise. They think it's not nice to fool with Mother Nature. Just sayin'.
They're also not going to defend themselves from frontal attacks by people who haven't dug further than altered reports digging up financial backers who aren't so bright as the facts-and-figures guys. When you and the green community realize this, hopefully you will extend an olive branch rather than an ad hominem attack on the beautiful people that they are. It isn't easy to tell the truth only to have your ankles chewed on, but they do it so we will not allow exaggeration to drain the world economy unduly. They deserve utmost respect for their opinions that are quite disjoint from the smarm this world is seeing from cash-strapped researchers. There has to be a happy medium somewhere, but it is not going to be in slapping free people with restrictive societies prone to deception by strong central police states that evolve when people become blind to the truth on company P & L statements or declare war on existing energy industries who have bettered the lives of every civilized nation on the planet with instant lighting, instant communications, and the like. They light up the world:
