OCT 02

what about building the island?? how long would the island have to function in order to offset original carbon costs? or are there islands in place already that they wish to modify?

Why not just apply this concept to dams. Excess energy from wind generators could pump water at the base of the dam back into the top to keep it filled so that the water would last during periods of drought and there would be energy provided during windless times. No excavation would be necessary as in the energy islands and with the rising water and strong storms due to Global warming, it would be much safer this way.

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Couldn't a similar approach be used to harness tidal energy? I'll admit one wouldn't have as much of a change in height for the water, but couldn't you have high tide come into an area, block it off, and slowly let out the water through turbines?

Adrian ...

Hydro power storage, basically using damns, works well. (International Hydropower Association Pumped Storage Database)However, it is constrained as a storage device to where the water (the dams) exist and where there is adequate water for using the hydro-system as a storage unit. These are greatly constraining requirements. The Netherlands is not exactly dam/hydropower friendly.

EV -- There are tidal power generation approaches, with some EcoGeek/Energy COOL ones being proposed.

Eric -- RE carbon/CO2, excellent question.

RE Eric's comment above, best item I found (generally) about this subject area is this report: "Net energy balance and greenhouse gas emissions from renewable energy storage systems" (http://fti.neep.wisc.edu/pdf/fdm1261.pdf). Note that this does get into something like the "Energy Island", although one could see something like this in the Great Lakes off, for example, Chicago.

Ingenious and yet so simple.

Very original an idea is just fantastic, what
kind of cost's and planning would be required to fund such an project ???

The premise is "producing excess power" and with a current shortfall in energy I think this is a false premise. All the energy would be required, and more, making the excavation redundant.

Reply to EV - tidemills have been in use for thousans of years. Here is a Roman one recently uncovered in London. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new...rmill.html

Not in opposition to this outline, but in concert with it, Wind farms can charge car batteries locally, without long, transmission lines and their inherent losses, after-all the cars move! We may see many smaller solar ventures, installed as battery charging stations throughout the parts of the land where feasible, along with coastal area charging stations using combinations of solar, wind and tidal generation, on a smaller scale for the automotive folks. Windy spots will certainly exploit free wind, over and above long distance transmission by wire, to charge batteries at a station, offering likely a battery exchange program for travelers. Close proximity to Nuclear power plants will mean cheap charges from dangerous fissionables, cheap in the over-night idling hours, sold by day when needed, much as gasoline today! We are on the cusp of a new, greater technology, and will be forced into it by the rising price and falling availability of oil, carbon taxes, and the speed of development of the battery car. Keep in mind, as GM fails, American Uber-rich investment money flows like a flooding river to the Shanghai and Asia's stock markets and is converted to the new world currency the "Yuan" to finance the likes of the new Chev "Volt" Chinese knock-off, proven on the streets of Shanghai as taxis, in service, as we speak, sold to Israel, for asap delivery, and available by 2011 in the U.S.A. These new, cheaper to buy, Asian, "Battery and gasoline" cars will serve as an introduction to the new technologies, and ways of traveling, to be followed by Tesla, and their sedan and sports coupe, totally electric and very clean. A veritable flotilla of three wheeled ultra light super fast and inexpensive commuter cars will follow, and the gasoline piston engined cars of yesteryear will be no more! banned as a safety hazard to the new plastic bodied ultra lights, with prohibitive insurance rates ending their rule of the roads forever! Power Islands will furnish the factories for the ultra lights, like the Apetura from California, and the heavy industry, metal presses and all, will fade into the ashes of Detroit City, the Ohio Rust Belt, and the other 19th century dinosaurs, lost in time, recorded in history books but other wise forgotten to the common folk!

In Ludington, Michigan... 35 years ago

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludington_Pumped_Storage_Power_Plant

... when it rains? The interior lake will fill up and all the precious potential for generating energy will be lost.

Might only be a minor problem. The general idea seems interesting, though (I'd just reverse it to pump water into the island and generate energy by letting it flow out - preferrably during low tide)