The Gulf Stream moves massive amounts of water. But it it meanders. And it is quite deep in places. So the time to profit and the cost of entry are higher than tidal generation on the COntinental Shelf, for example. Buty it could be done. Rick Driscoll, director of Florida Atlantic University's Center of Excellence in Ocean Energy Technology (CEOET), and his colleagues are hard at work developing a device that could allow his state to procure up to a third of its energy needs by tapping into the Gulf Stream's energy-dense waters. A field of underwater turbines moored 1,000 ft below the surface in the center of the Gulf Stream could - by drawing from its 8 billion gallons per minute flow rate - provide as much energy as several nuclear plants.


A