The Land of Giant Tides

We are up in the Minas Basin, an adjunct to the Bay of Fundy. World record tides, with over 50 feet reported regularly. The tidal mud flats are over two miles wide in some places: the most powerful tidal currents in the world.

It's land (mud) all the way out to the small island, several miles. Shot with a telephoto lens.

Another miles-wide clam flat at Five Islands Lighthouse Park. About two hours after low tide. You might see one clam digger way out

I was a great admirer of tidal power. It seemed like a powerful, free energy source with low environmental impact. I spent a lot time a decade ago researching tidal power. I looked forward to visiting, even though I knew the turbines are underwater.

The Minas Basin is the largest tidal resource in the world  — more water flows faster here than anywhere else, more water moves here than all rivers in the world combined. People have dreamed of harnessing the tides forever. The first tidal plant was started in 1915, but burned down in 1920.

FDR was one of the first big advocates. Even before he was President he worked hard to get a tidal generating station near Eastport ME, which has the highest tides in the US. As he summered on Campobello Island, just a hundred yards from Lubec ME, he was very familiar with the power of tides.   

The Passamaquoddy Project never got built. The engineer's model of it in the museum at Eastport is interesting, but is getting old. It wasn’t working when we visited a few years ago.

MIT sponsored a conference on hydropower some 10 or 15 years ago. Canada exhibited their underwater turbines project for the Minas Basin. Like most green energy projects, the prospects are wildly overstated, but I learned a lot. (Researching for this post, I see the existing underwater turbine has been inoperative since 2018.)

I always like to learn about energy ideas that “move the needle”. If an interesting project is only going to save 0.001% at full implementation, it’s not really worthwhile. I generally consider 1% a "needle move": if a concept, fully implemented, could generate or save 1% of  energy or waste in the country, it may be worth pursuing. 

A bit of number crunching later, I calculated the potential energy that could be generated in the Bay of Fundy/Minas Basin ("the biggest in the world!") would be … barely enough to just power Nova Scotia. Woo-hoo, not. It does not move the needle for Canada, much less USA. 

Tidal power isn’t free; it is billions of dollars for construction at scale. Tidal power is not dispatchable — no power is produced at slack tide. To replace fossil fuel plants one needs bigger-than-ever-built batteries, big pumped hydro, or gas peaker plants. Not impossible, but certainly not trivial. 

Maintenance is significant. Environmental impact on marine life, including whales and commercial fisheries, is probably significant to catastrophic. Oh, well. Seemed like a great idea. 

However, if you are an energy geek, FORCE is interesting to see.  FORCE -- Fundy Ocean Research Centre for Energy is located at Parrsboro NS, the the site of the strongest tidal flows, and supports various tidal projects for the Basin. I had a wonderful conversation with the Manager, Sandra Currie. While she is enthusiastic and knowledgeable about tidal power, she brought up the possibility that over-harvesting the Minas Basin resource could possibly seriously disrupt the Labrador current and the Gulf Stream, causing a major climactic disruption. That would be a big ooopsie to avoid.

The harbor at Parrsboro is dry at low tide. Look carefully you can see a very high dock, with two grounded out fishing boats. The lighthouse to the right marks the entrance to the harbor, with a breakwater going to the right.

Not even dead low tide

We also went to the beach at Partridge Island. Barbara did some art.

The rocky jagged point in the distance is Cape Split, site of the first tidal power plant in 1915

I climbed up the ridge of the island. Looking East.

The parks department had this chart on a sign. Anything unusual? It had me puzzled for a little while.

Note the compass rose at the middle bottom of chart - S is up; North is down

We also stopped at "Lighthouse Park", which had a delightful Halloween Walk (several hundred yards) of spooky decorations. There is a significant scallop fishing industry locally, so hundreds of the decorations were hand painted on scallop shells, mostly hung on the trees. (Sadly, it is not scallop season so I couldn't get any fresh scallops.) No store-bought plastic.

The Dog Library sign says "Take a stick, leave a stick"

May all your Halloweens be as fun and original as this town,

Krem and Barbara