April 2020 | SMITHSONIAN 57upgrades, seven months into the experiment. In 2018, another
turbine was lowered into the passage. But within days, Open-
Hydro’s investors pulled out, and the company fi led for bank-
ruptcy. The turbine rests on the seafl oor to this day.
The Fundy Ocean Research Centre for Energy (FORCE), an
international test site for tidal-energy development in Parrs-
boro, Nova Scotia, occupies a glassy building overlooking
Minas Passage. Researchers estimate that
the waterway’s fast-moving tidal currents
could generate 2,500 megawatts—enough
to power all of Nova Scotia, home to nearly
a million people—and displace up to nine
million tons of greenhouse gases. One of
the great advantages of tidal power is the
density of the kinetic energy itself; a so-
lar-energy project in Morocco that produc-
es 580 megawatts covers as much ground
as roughly 3,500 football fi elds.
Established in 2008 and mostly gov-
ernment-funded, FORCE is the mani-
festation of Nova Scotia’s tidal dreams;
it’s a generator of tidal-energy research
and an operations center for companies
testing gear and monitoring sea life.
But arguably its most important asset
lies underwater, where fi ve so-called
berths, each just shy of eight acres, await
tidal-turbine tenants. Among those ex-
pected to plug into FORCE’s submarine
cables, which connect to a nearby elec-
trical substation, is SME.
Jason Clarkson had likened the Plat-I to
a small turboprop plane. The project that
SME hopes to launch in Minas Passage
later this year will be more like an Airbus:
three platforms, each hosting six tur-
bines. Combined, they will generate 1.26
megawatts. The new venture, a partner-
ship between SME and a Canadian com-
pany called Minas Tidal, will be called
the “Pempa’q In-Stream Tidal Energy
Project.” The word pempa’q means “rising
tide” in the local Mi’kmaq language.
From FORCE’s backyard, I scan the
silt-rich waters of the passage and fo-
cus my binoculars on Cape Split, rising
sharply to the southwest. I recall that
Nova Scotia had, in an age of ecological
innocence (the 1980s), actively consid-
ered spanning this waterway with an
fi ve-mile-long barrage stuff ed with 128
turbines. In comparison, three fl oating
platforms wouldn’t be terribly intrusive.
But what about more?
Local fi shermen “aren’t worried about
one turbine. They are worried about ar-
rays of 300,” Anna Redden, who sits on
the board of FORCE, had told me. SME wasn’t the only com-
pany prospecting in these currents: FORCE had other tenants
moving in, and successful projects always hanker to scale up.
“With every doubling of cumulative capacity,” Hayman had
told me, “cost to consumers drops by 15 to 20 percent. Price-
wise, tidal is where off shore wind was 15 years ago, and solar
10.” If all went well with his three-platform array, he aimed to
increase it to 21 and produce almost nine megawatts.
Unlike wind turbines, which have converged on a nearly
universal design, tidal turbines still come in many shapes
and sizes. Axes of tidal turbines can be vertical or hori-
zontal; the devices resemble tabletop fans, Archimedean
screws, the helical blades of push lawn mowers and even
wind turbines. (But because water is “approximately 838
times” denser than air, a naval architect can and will tell
you, tidal blades can be much smaller than wind blades.)
Some turbines operate nearThe dramatic
tidal range
of the Bay of
Fundy is plain in
Hall’s Harbour,
from the high
tide mark on
the seawall to
the fi shing boat
resting aground
at low tide.
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