All FERN News
Bay of Fundy tidal turbine now powering 500 Nova Scotia homes
Nova Scotia is now officially generating tidal energy after the first tidal turbine in North America was successfully connected to the power grid Tuesday.
The 1,000-tonne turbine, which is part of the Cape Sharp Tidal project to harness the immense power of the Bay of Fundy, is now powering 500 homes in Nova Scotia.
“We are ushering a new era in marine renewable energy and taking an unprecedented step toward a lower carbon future,” Energy Minister Michel Samson said.
Racing pumpkins to map the tides in Grand Passage, Digby County
WESTPORT – Tidal energy researchers want to experiment with pumpkins for mapping the flow of the tides in Grand Passage.
Greg Trowse of Luna Ocean Consulting has already done a lot of preliminary work from his kayak on trips around Brier and Long Islands and other parts of southwest Nova Scotia, launching and tracking special drifters he developed for this work.
Recently Trowse and Reid Gillis, a Freeport fisherman and former whale watch operator have launching and tracking more drifters from Reid’s rigid inflatable boat.
Now Trowse wants to hold a pumpkin race with the whole community to see if he can use pumpkins for mapping ocean currents. Drones will take aerial images of the bright orange globes which will allow researchers to see how exactly the tides move in the passage.
Tidal energy meetings: Wednesday in Tiverton and Thursday in Digby
DIGBY – Two different tidal developers are holding two separate information meetings in Digby County this week. Spray Tidal is holding a public meeting Wednesday evening, Nov. 16 in Tiverton to discuss their project in Petit Passage. Black Rock Tidal power is holding an open house in Digby Thursday evening, Nov. 17 to discuss their project in the Minas Passage.
Tiverton
Tidal power in Petit Passage
Spray Tidal information meeting
Tiverton Community Hall
Nov. 16, 6:45 p.m. to 8:45 p.m.
Digby
TIRTON S40 turbine for Bay of Fundy
Black Rock Tidal Power open house
Digby Fire Hall
Nov. 17, 4 p.m. to 7 p.m.
Tidal turbine deployed at FORCE site
WEST BAY – A tidal power turbine is now in place in the turbulent Minas Channel, after a successful deployment operation was conducted by Cape Sharp Tidal on Monday morning.
With help from heavy equipment such as the Scotia Tide deployment barge and the massive Kingfisher tug vessel from Atlantic Towing, the turbine was slowly lowered to the ocean floor during a four-hour operation on an ebb tide.
The operation was complete at 10:40 a.m., with excited onlookers watching from the nearby FORCE (Fundy Ocean Research Centre for Energy) building, and other vantage points along the shore.
The operation took place on the five-year anniversary of the official opening of the FORCE centre on Nov. 7, 2011.
New tool eases habitat-friendly renewable energy development
WWF-Canada today launched Renewables for Nature, a new interactive decision-making tool to help identify regions with high renewable-energy potential and comparatively low conflict with nature. The tool aims to speed the transition to a low-carbon future while ensuring key habitats and ecosystems thrive for wildlife and communities.
This tool, applied in New Brunswick and the Bay of Fundy region to start, overlays renewable energy and conservation data on the same map for the first time in Canada. The energy layer reveals renewable energy reserves: the resource potential for each energy type across the region. The conservation layer captures data on 728 species at risk, as well as detailed information on biodiversity, habitat and other conservation and community environmental uses for the entire area.