The number of new electric vehicles coming onto the market is getting hard to keep track of. Sometime in late 2017 I wanted to find some news resources for the EV market. I asked in my Tesla Facebook group, and a number of people recommended a YouTube channel called Fully Charged. This show is BRILLIANT! It not only dives into the EV industy, but also alternative power in general. This includes solar or course, but they also have done episodes on wind turbines, tidal wave power generation, as well as battery technologies in general. On top of the geeky info I get out of it, the guys running the show are also pretty entertaining/funny.
Through this show I have expanded my knowledge of all of these areas, and was hoping for a time when it made sense for me to invest in solar panels for my house (more on that later in this blog). The episodes where they covered various efforts to use tidal power for electricity generation reminded me of a tour I took in Eastport, Maine, that talked of a tidal power project that began back in 1920. This was called the Passamaquoddy Tidal Project. Plans were made, and work had begun. The stock market crash of 1929 almost killed the project, but FDR was then elected, and backed the project with the "New Deal". It was later determined to be too expensive for the area. It's a shame because the tidal forces in that particular area are supposedly the greatest on the planet. Work stopped on the project in 1936.
Interestingly enough, 70 years later, in 2006, new interest in a tidal project was started back up. The new project is called the Cobscook Bay Tidal Energy Project. The system came on line in 2012. The new design is really nothing like the system in the 1920s, but people knew that this was the perfect spot to start this off for the nation.
Eastport happens to be the home town of my mother. I still go there from time to time. I was not aware that the system was online, so now I have a reason to go back and take a look.
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