Kuroshio power plant development plan

As a country lacking energy reserves. Taiwan imports 99.2% of its energy, with only a small portion of indigenous energy, such as hydro, wind, and solar. In 2008, each Taiwanese spent 85,000 NTD dollars (1 USD similar to 32 NTD) to purchase oil, coal, gas, and nuclear fuel from foreign countries, accounting for a total payment of 1.8 trillion NTD, more than the annual budget of the Taiwan government of 1.7 trillion NTD. In the same year, Taiwan emitted about 1% of the world's greenhouse gas (GHG), or 12 tons per person-year, ranking 18th globally. These situations in terms of energy security and carbon emission are very severe. To resolve these severe situations, harnessing the power of the Kuroshio in eastern Taiwan offers a great opportunity. The Kuroshio is a branch of the North Pacific Ocean current. Due to the westward-enhanced effect, this ocean current is strong and stable as it passes through eastern Taiwan. The flow rate is about 30 sverdrup (Sv) or 1000 times that of the Yangtze River, the average speed is 1 m/s, the flow direction is fixed to the north, and the flow path is close to the east coast of Taiwan. By precisely locating high-quality sites and implementing sequential works with careful planning, one can possibly generate exploitable power more than 30 GW. With 30 GW of clean energy, Taiwan could effectively enhance energy security, reduce GHG emission, and lower energy-purchasing cost. This paper proposes a feasibility study to explore the power of the Kuroshio. The content consists of four parts: (1) assessment of Kuroshio power reserves, (2) development of turbine generators, (3) development of turbine-anchor system, and (4) deep-sea marine engineering of turbine clusters. By integrating these technologies above, we propose a project to construct a 30 MW pilot plant. In this project, we also discuss the financial analysis and propose new regulations, environmental impact analysis, risk assessment, and other relevant issues. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.