Chapter 6
Harnessing the Tides in America
project has had one thing in common with the rapidly defunct Aber Wrac’h plant:
both were started, both were left to slide into dereliction. The French had to stop work because of the Twenties’ economic crisis that left the works without money, the US Government laid down the spades because the local electricity companies foresaw an end to their profitable monopoly and pressured the US Congress, through their regional congressmen, to cut off funding for “Passamaquoddy”.
Tidal power had been tapped in America long before Franklin Delano Roosevelt came onto the stage. European settlers had brought to the Unites States and Canada their know-how and thus numerous tide mills were built, principally near New York—on Long Island, the Lefferts and Van Wyck mills–, in New England (1617) and in Quebec. News releases of 2007 mention the existence of tide mills in New Jersey as well. Far more than the tide- or sea-mill, the contemporary tidal power plant has to be a sustainable and reliable source of power, and the TPP differs from a run-of-the-river hydro-electric facility in that—until the small head turbines made their apparition and still increased such difference—its hydraulic head is com- paratively rather small and very large quantities of water, accurately predictable, will remain available for any foreseeable future.
The Bay of Fundy is a site where tides attain a considerable range, and where, furthermore, the surrounding land configuration offers excellent possibilities for the development of tidal power plants. Here, where the Memramcook and Petitcodiac rivers end their seaward course, the world’s largest tides reach ranges of sixteen meters. Tides of only 71/2m occur in Cobscook Bay, yet it is in that bay, cou- pled with Passamaquoddy Bay, thereby providing a 366 km2basin, that locations for tidal power schemes have been proposed. It has been a century since various schemes and designs have been studied related to the implant of a TPP in the Passamaquoddy area. Economic rather than engineering factors have put the brakes on construction1. A situation similar to that prevailing in Australia existed in the New England States and the Maritime Provinces of Canada: a considerable distance between the location of the potential plant and the actual consumer. Roosevelt saw in the plant an excellent project for his Works Project Administration, providing also jobs, and future development of the region. Since then transmission problems have been resolved, demand for power spectacularly increased, and the utilization of fossil fuels environmentally disastrous and their price reaching un-dreamt of levels.
The General Electric Company, a giant of the electricity industry, developed an interest in 1927, but its plans also came to naught. Yet, the construction costs of just short of $125 million—perhaps as little as one hundredth of the contemporary price tag, would have been retired very long ago2. The foreseen production would have reached 1,594 million kW/h.
1The Canadian pilot plant in the Bay of Fundy is not considered here as a “Quoddy” scheme but rather as a Bay of Fundy plant.
2It would have been one tenth of the investment needed half a century later. The one hundredth figure is estimated on the current devalued US dollar.
If tide mills operated in the Rance Estuary before the TPP construction, likewise some tide mills had been at work in Passamaquoddy Bay at the end of the 18th century but they had become derelict well before the end of the 19th century. The first applications for a TPP construction in the Quoddy area are associated with the name of Daniel F. Cooper date back eighty years! His proposals dealt with schemes to be located entirely in the State of Maine, others with Canada-US projects3. All his applications for Federal Loans were turned down. His final attempt, a two-pool plant, was turned down in 1935 because the US Federal Government had initiated its own project.
Seven million US dollars were allocated, in 1935, by President Roosevelt for the construction, by the US Army Corps of Engineers, of a Cobscook Bay (Maine) TPP. The scheme was to be a single pool plant with a pumped-storage facility near Haycock Harbor and a 22 km long transmission line. Work, started in 1935, came to an end in 1936. It meant also the lay-off of over 4,000 workers. As did the Electricit´e de France thirty years later near St Malo-Dinard, a special town was created: Quoddy Village to accommodate them. Two dams had already been com- pleted; damaged by a storm, repairs were only halted in 1937. Some forty years after work had stopped, and Quoddy Village been deserted4, little remained of the Dudley-Treat islands dam but two other dams—carrying a single-track railway line and a State of Maine highway—connecting respectively Corlow and Moose islands and Corlow Island and the mainland (Pleasant Point), subsisted in good condition.
The coup de grˆace came in 1941 when the US Federal Power Commission spoke out against an exclusively United States plant, finding it economically “un- competitive” and favoring further exploratory work for a larger international Passamaquoddy scheme. On the other side of the border enthusiasm had also waned—though it picked up again several decades later. The Canadian Government concluded, in a 1945 Report, that a project foreseeing a powerhouse between the Memramcook and Petitcodiac estuaries was uneconomical. Later studies pointed to the Nova Scotia Minas Basin as a more promising site. It is finally there (Hog’s Island) that a pilot plant was built (1984 and on).
The 1959 Passamaquoddy Engineering Investigations Report culminated the se- ries of studies undertaken since 1948 jointly by Canada and the United States. It concluded in the Passamaquoddy Fisheries Investigations Report (1959) that though no disadvantage would be suffered by the fisheries industry, the fisheries them- selves would probably suffer some adverse effects of the siting of a plant in the Passamaquoddy-Cobscook bays. While herring would be wiped out inside the dam, the economic impact would be minimal since that catch made up only 21/2% of the yield for the St Mary Bay (Nova Scotia)-Cape Elisabeth (Maine) area.
31924, 1926, 1928 and 1933.
4The village has totally “disappeared” and the only trace left, in 1970, is a Federal Government owned tract of land.
6.2.1 The Passamaquoddy Site
If we go by the standards laid out by de Rouville5, the site is ideally suited for a power plant. The region has been the locale of crustal and tectonic movements and has undergone alterations caused by intrusions and volcanic flows. Passages around the islands concerned in the project are partially submerged old stream valleys; the islands themselves are parts of pre-Quaternary-glaciation landforms that remained above sea-level. The overburden, in the area, are unconsolidated glacial surface de- posits, weathered materials and peat. The bedrock is made up of sedimentary and igneous Paleozoic rocks. We are in a stable region where earthquake risk is very remote. Sand, gravel and crushed rock are exploited and used in road building; they could thus, as is the case with the Rance site, be used as fill in connection with a TPP construction.
An equally favorable hydrological situation prevails. The Quoddy tides are strongly influenced by the resonance of the Gulf of Maine-Bay of Fundy System, although the tidal system in the Bay of Fundy itself is not very resonant. Tidal ef- fects have been the topic of several studies, including some by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Wrapping these together it may be concluded that a tidal power complex would modify the in- and out-flow of Passamaquoddy (intended high pool) and Cobscook (intended low pool) bays, and possibly the Bay of Fundy tides, thereby the amount of generated power as well. The MIT reported that the Bay of Fundy tides would, if at all, only increase very slightly. Production would remain satisfactory notwithstanding creation of significant slopes in the pools at Falls Island [lower pool] (Cobscook Bay). The bay’s head is favored, and it was frequently men- tioned that this site is one of the few in the world where a two-pool scheme can be profitably implanted. A single-pool arrangement was judged more expensive, peak generation rates increased and power produced only intermittently. Other aspects considered include pumped storage and auxiliary river hydro developments.
An Indian tribe, in the area, obtained some funding twenty years ago to build a small TPP. However, hardly any news was ever received on their project since the mid 1980s (Laberge).
6.2.2 The U.S. and the U.K.
The United States still shows at best look-warm interest for tidal energy since the Passamaquoddy Roosevelt fiasco of the thirties. Not so the United Kingdom. In May 2005 the Ministry of Trade and Industry awarded £2.7 million (C=3.9 million) for the development of “TidEl”, a tidal current device.
At the other end of the American continent considerable interest had once been shown to tap the tides of the Gulf of San Jos´e.
5De Rouville, A., 1957, General report on the utilisation of the tidal mechanical energy: La Houille Blanche-Rev. Intern. de l’Eau II, 435–455.