With the cost of crude oil hovering around $145 per barrel, alternative energy sources have become all the rage.
Texas-based Gulfstream Technologies Inc. moved to the forefront of the alternative-energy hunt Monday when it demonstrated it can produce electricity with nothing more than water current.
"What our technology does is create renewable energy from one-directional water flow such as rivers, streams or industrial canals," Gulfstream CEO Brent Ballard said while giving the American Press a look at the company's Lake Charles facility. "Our goal is to eventually utilize our technology to create electricity from ocean currents."
The prototype was fabricated in Lake Charles by Dubois Sheet Metal Works and features a dual-rotor turbine with a pair of 2-by-3-foot turbines that produce 10,000 watts.
"In this prototype each turbine is powering a 5-kilowatt generator," Ballard said. "With this small dual-rotor turbine we are creating 10,000 watts of energy.
"Most canals in this area would take rotors that are about 8 or 9 feet tall and 6 feet in diameter," he said. "The bigger the turbine coupled with faster water flow and larger volumes of water per minute would benefit our technology and result in more electricity."
The benefits to hydrotechnology are clear, he said.
"There are no fuel costs to produce electricity," Ballard said. "We don't need to bring in natural gas, coal or oil."
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