Hi there. This is Alex.

Whenever politicians and greens talk about alternative energy, the list usually goes wind, solar, and tidal power. But how real is tidal power? Where will it happen and when?

This week on Radio Ecoshock you'll hear Martin Burger, CEO of a tidal power company called Blue Energy. He spoke to the New Energy Movement in Vancouver on January 26th, 2009.

In fact, Martin went further. He explained four other neglected new energy sources, the best and most intriguing from a survey of 500 he's examined over the past two decades. I'll add those as time allows.

And, as promised in last week's show, we'll consider how new ways of living appear in a society. Burger says money cannot bring the next wave. It is a problem of consciousness, how we function as big groups, like the flocks and schools of other animals.

Along the way, I'll toss in a few facts about installations around the world, the current state of tidal power.

How about this one. Did you know that days used to be much shorter here on Earth? Like 21.9 hours, just 620 million years ago, instead of 24? Just pumping all that sea water into the bays and narrows of the world uses up mechanical energy that causes the world to spin. The tides are slowing down the planet. The 26 hour day is coming. But don't toss out your clocks just yet - that will be another 600 million years from now.

As we'll hear from Martin Burger, this immense power can be harnessed to create giant streams of electricity. The initial building cost is high, but the long-term maintenance costs are quite low. The impact on the local ecology varies with the design. Martin will be describing a "tidal fence" of spinning rotors, built into a bridge perhaps. It's a big dream, but there are signs tidal power is beginning to lift off in various parts of the world.

I'm going to pick out the tidal info from Martin's speech at Simon Fraser University, Vancouver.

[First intro to 15 minute mark]

That is Martin Burger, from http://www.blueenergy.com/. In this Radio Ecoshock special on tidal power, we're going to skip ahead to what we came for. More on this powerful green energy source, from Martin's speech to the New Energy Movement Canada in January 2009.

[Next tidal clip]

This is Radio Ecoshock, I'm Alex Smith and we're talking tidal power. Coming up, we'll here more from Martin Burger as he addresses the New Energy Movement Canada - with good technologies languishing under the regime of oil and coal.

First, I'd like to take a spin around the world, to find tidal power in action. As any Google search will tell you, humans have been harnessing the tides since ancient times. The Romans did it, and so did people in Medieval Europe, even making tidal rotors to drive grain mills.

We could still drive machinery with the tides, but the real goal now is electricity and lots of it. Basically at least three types of tide machines have been built, at least in prototypes. Case one: There are barricades which allow the tide in, and then hold the water back for gradual release through the turbines. These are the most ecologically damaging to build and operate.

We can look at one of the first real commercial tidal electric plants, built on the Rance River in France, back in 1966. To build it, the engineers had to construct two dams on either side of the site, completely blocking the river for a long time. Some species died off, to be replaced by others after the river flow was somewhat restored. The project was expensive for the time, but over the following decades, it has proved very cheap to maintain. The Rance River tidal project more than paid back it's cost in electricity generated. But most of us would find the ecological costs too high to bear, these days.

Martin Burger's designs are a second case, which are called tidal fences. They do not require a complete dam of the local water flows. The electricity is only generated about 18 hours a day. That's because there are two high tides, and two low, in each 24 hours, with about an hour and a half of "slack tide" - the time when the water isn't moving much either way. Still, with tidal tables, this slack time is predictable years in advance. And tidal power is much more stable than either wind or solar, which can vary with the weather.

The least ecologically damaging proposals call for the equivalent of wind turbines built on shallow ocean floors, turned by the tides. These would not be visible.

Proponents of both tidal fences and turbines claim than neither marine mammals nor fish would be hurt by these installations. Burger said the rotors move slowly enough that fish find the equivalent of a revolving door to a department store. Even larger fish, like salmon, can maneuver their way through, he says, but during a major run, the rotors could be shut down. There are also plans to let both ships and large mammals pass through specially designed locks, located near the normal traffic ways.

I don't know enough to judge these claims - and the ecological impact of tidal power is still being studied in various labs and universities. There is a worry about imposing our energy needs on the sea. What are the unforeseen impacts?

Still, the vision of using the tides, instead of wrecking the atmosphere, seems very promising.

Where is it?

There are only about 40 places in the world where the tides are strong enough to generate economic power. These have been pretty well mapped out, at least for existing tech.

The United States has fewer tidal opportunities than Canada, the UK, Russia, or even Australia.

Frankly, there isn't much tide power going on in the U.S. As my San Francisco listeners know, there has been a proposal to harness the tides running under the Golden Gate Bridge. The plan has stalled so far, but may happen if financing and approval show up.

There has been a prototype running since 2007 in the East River in New York City. The blades of the first model broke off, but a stronger version was installed in September 2008. There is another test of a prototype near Eastport Maine.

We've already heard about proposals to install tide turbines on Canada's West Coast, and Puget Sound in the U.S. The famous Bay of Fundy on Canada's East Coast is also a good contender. O yeah, and the Nova Scotia Power Corporation also opened the Annapolis Royal Generating Station in 1984.

A company called Marine Current Turbines has installed a big 1 megawatt plus generator at Strangford Lough in North Ireland. The Wikipedia entry for tidal power says this is the first commercial scale device installed anywhere in the world. But the installation in the Rance River, France was built decades before that.

Dr. A. M. Gorlov is offering a helical rotor type tide generator. Martin Burger disputes the originality of the design, which is entering a pilot project in South Korea now. Gorlov has also claimed that turbines running in the Gulf Stream could power all of North America.

Russia claims a 12 megawatt tidal project is being constructed at Kislaya Guba with orthogonal turbines. China is experimenting with tide projects large and small.

There was also a commercial scale trial of tidal power in Australia, off the Gold Coast of Queensland in 2002. The government also plans a combination desalinization and tidal power demonstration plant near Brisbane.

Many other countries, from Norway through Italy to New Zealand, are seriously considering tidal power, or already experimenting with it. But other than the Northern Ireland installation, I think it's fair to say we don't yet have a big tidal generating station operating anywhere in the world. It's not vaporware, but tidal power isn't something we can rely on, in the near term - unless climate change and energy prices drive governments and corporations into serious action.

That leads back to the question asked by many, including Senator John Kerry to Al Gore in his January Senate testimony: why haven't these alternative energies really taken off? Yes there has been a solid block of lobby money, endless lobby money, from the old oil, gas and coal industries. But there could be more. We don't yet understand what makes humans, all of us, change.

So before we examine some of the other technical contenders for better energy, with more from Martin Burger, let's listen again to last week's clip. Burger calls on the vision of Einstein: that everything is really a field of frozen or slowed energy. You and I are fields of atoms that are somehow held together in a field. And collectively we interact to project a larger field into time.

I want to hear that one again.

[Burger clip]

So all the money in the world, even from Obama's dream, isn't likely to bring us tidal power, and other significant energy changes, unless you and I can envision this sustainable future. Until we the experience of that hundredth monkey, the turning tide in the minds of millions of humans.

I believe it can happen, even though we don't yet understand how. Some day, no matter what troubles arise, our energy will be drawn from the pull of the sun and moon on our oceans.

I'm Alex Smith, and this is Radio Ecoshock. We'll continue now with more from Martin Burger, CEO of Blue Energy, a tidal power company. Speaking to the New Energy Movement Canada, Burger explores the top tier of almost lost energy alternatives he's encountered over the past couple of decades. This is from a seeker who looked pretty well everywhere for energy answers.

[radio discussion of other engine technologies, including the strange story of Stanley Meyer, who was allegedly murdered after his discovery of using water to power a car…]

That's all the time we have this week. You have been listening to a talk by Martin Burger. Find his website at www.blueenergy.com and check out newenergymovement.ca for more ideas. The recording was made by Alex Smith in Vancouver on January 26th, 2009.

Thanks for donating your time and brain. What do you think - will tidal power run the next civilization?