Potential for sea change in energy policy

Experienced mariners navigating through eastern Long Island Sound are well advised to steer away from the notoriously treacherous Plum Gut off Orient Point and The Race off Fishers Island during peak ebb and flood, when extraordinarily powerful tidal currents can rip along at up to 7.5 knots.

What long has been a sailor's nightmare, though, could become a dream of reliable, clean energy.

We are for the most part encouraged by a New York company's renewed plans to study the feasibility of generating tidal energy in these waters, as well as by separate approval of a federal license to construct what could become the nation's first tidal energy project, in New York City's East River.

Verdant Power hopes to build a pilot system of tidal energy turbines near Roosevelt Island just east of midtown Manhattan to determine whether the site would be appropriate for a larger, permanent project.

The fast-flowing East River is one of the nation's busiest waterways, plied by barges, tankers, tour boats and other marine traffic, and the main concerns about such a project would be to safeguard navigation rather than protect against environmental or recreational degradation.

Eastern Long Island Sound, on the other hand - where Natural Currents Energy Services of Highland, N.Y., has again filed an application with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for a preliminary permit to conduct tidal-energy studies in a 17-square-mile underwater zone - is treasured for its fishing, lobstering, sailing and pristine beaches. The waters also are traversed by ferries, large commercial vessels and submarines.

The company must be held to its promise that such a project would have minimal navigational or environmental impact.

NCES had proposed similar plans three years ago but dropped them. We urge the company to pursue the concept more aggressively this time around.

This nation's over-reliance on oil repeatedly has led us to fight wars, form unholy alliances with dictators and deal with the consequences of disastrous spills. Oil alternatives have presented their own challenges: Nuclear power is stymied by the problem of permanently storing spent fuel; the mining and burning of coal remains destructive and dangerous despite technological advances; natural gas and shale-oil processing have their own environmental pitfalls; neither solar nor wind power has proven economically viable for large-scale generation.

To be sure the construction of slow-moving, underwater turbines and transmission cables in the Sound would interfere with some navigation and initially affect some marine life, but at this stage it appears any negative impact would more than be compensated by a reduction in carbon-based energy generation.

While this newspaper would prefer that a greater emphasis be placed on conservation rather than generation, if the project is successful the nation's energy policy at last could be headed for a sea change.