Mass. firm seeks Miss. River power permits
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ST. LOUIS (AP) — A federal regulatory agency is holding meetings in seven cities, including Baton Rouge, on a plan to harness the flow of the Mississippi River to generate electricity from St. Louis to New Orleans.
Free Flow Power Corp. of Gloucester, Mass., wants to place 180,000 small turbines in the Mississippi River below navigational channels to generate as much as 1,800 megawatts of power.
In Baton Rouge, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission will hold hearings at the Scotlandville Branch Library, 7373 Scenic Highway, on April 29 at 5:30 p.m. and April 30 at 10 a.m.
Three hydrokinetic power plants would be placed from roughly Southern University north to Morganza in the river and another half-dozen would be placed from Brusly down to Donaldsonville.
At an LSU alternative energy conference last year, Free Flow executive Christopher Williams said the company expected to bring the river-based plants online in 2012 or 2013. Energy converters on 200-square-foot pads onshore would be needed to distribute the energy to the power grid onshore, he said. About 150 turbines — each 2 feet in diameter — would be linked in power systems at selected locations up and down the river.
The potentially $3 billion system, known as a hydrokinetic project, would use river currents to spin the turbine blades, which then turn a generator shaft to produce electricity. Cables would transmit the power to sites on land.
While Free Flow has received permits to study sites where it would like to place the turbines, the project is still in its early stages. The company said it could be 2011 before it applies for licenses that would allow for equipment installation.
Meetings are also being held in New Orleans; Memphis, Tenn.; and Tunica Resorts in Mississippi. A meeting was held April 14 in Vicksburg, Miss.
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