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news 12 MTR September 2010 U.S. Coast Guard Sector Northern New England (SNNE) crews partnered with Ocean Renewable Power Company (ORPC) members to demonstrate the a robust tidal energy program on, Aug. 24, 2010. Gov. John Baldacci, Congressman Mike Michaud and Capt. James McPherson, SNNE’s com- mander, united at Coast Guard Station Eastport to celebrate the first-ever successful implementation of tidal energy at a federal facility. Massive tidal ranges in the ocean waters surrounding Eastport represent some of the largest in the country, rising and falling over 20 feet. The Coast Guard’s Research and Development Center (RDC), located in New London, Conn., and SNNE collaborated with Ocean Renewable Power Company to commission the first ever use of a tidal energy generator. The 60 kW tidal turbine was launched in March for testing and is the largest ocean tidal energy generator in the United States. The turbine generator unit (TGU) is set in a steel-composite frame and is deployed from one of ORPC’s research vessels, the Energy Tide 2, in Cobscook Bay. The unit utilizes advanced design cross-flow turbines to drive the generator and the electricity produced will charge a set of battery modules housed in the Energy Tide 2. The generator was recently re-deployed fol- lowing several upgrades and began providing clean, grid-compatible electricity to Coast Guard Station Eastport’s 41-foot Utility Boat on Aug. 18, 2010. The TGU will also be involved in a concurrent project to test an active acoustic monitoring system that iden- tifies marine life and debris in the vicinity of the turbine. “The tidal generator is a pioneering con- cept in the field of renewable energy,” said McPherson. “The fact that this prototype is successfully producing power gives us the sense that this project has unlimited poten- tial for not only Coast Guard facilities, but for the United States.” USCG, ORPC Partner on Tidal Energy Demo Iver2: In Search of Earhart OceanServer Technology recently loaned an Iver2 AUV outfitted with Side Scan Sonar to the The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (acronym TIGHAR, pronounced “tiger”), the world’s leading aviation archaeological founda- tion. The TIGHAR foun- dation has organized several trips to Gardner Island, now Nikumaroro in the Republic of Kiribati based on the hypothe- sis that Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan land- ed and eventually died on this remote Pacific island. The Iver2 vehi- cle was operated by Seabotix, a worldwide leader in small ROVs, to sweep large areas of the Nikumaroro Lagoon and collect Side Scan Sonar images. The AUV sonar data was used to identify geo-refer- enced targets of inter- est that could then be further investigated by an ROV. For further information on the “The Earhart Project” visit the TIGHAR web- site: http://tighar.org.
