苏格兰利用潮汐向居民供电

Here is another cutting-edge technological project off the North coast of Scotland. Power companies have listed 10 sites on the seabed to turn wave and tidal energy into electricity.

Such a cool idea, They aim to power 750,000 homes by 2020. David Shukman of BBC, check it out.

Inch by inch, a new source of power is taking shape, the size of a submarine. Here at the dock side at Leeds near Edinburgh this vast machine will make electricity from the waves. Nearby, lying amounts of coal. It was coal that powered industrial revolution. Could sea power ever do the same?

This components is now being lowered into the sea and operation will have to be repeated thousands of times. And a start what's been described as a new era of harnessing the power of the sea.

This system captures the swill. Each wave passing along the cylinders, moves the hinges that connect them. And that motion drives generators.

"So it's not alone"

Near assembly hall, I was given the chance to see inside, down through the hatch.

"Wow, it's just like being inside a submarine." It's one section stretches through the gloom for 34 meters. Out the sea, there will be no one in here. The whole thing rocking with the waves. "And here, at the end of this gaint cylinder is where they actually generate the power. Let me show you how that's done. Every time a wave passes along this system, the cylinders move at where they are hinged. There are these huge hydronic pumps, like bicycle pumps. And that captures the energy of the waves is channeled into a generator like this, and ends up producing electricity."

But what happens if there aren't any waves. "This thing will be useless on a flat day." "On a flat day, we won't produce any power. That's right, but important thing is the contribution average within a year, every make what we generate is a make what it doesn't need be fronted by force of fuels."

This plan to harness the power of the sea is the largest of its kind in the world. Electricity for 750,000 homes could be generated if all the projects go ahead. That's 1.2 GW, roughly what a big conventional power station generates. "

"That's a very important day. What we've actually done is taking a very big step to making a new technology, renew energy technology----wave in tidal, commercially deployed on a grand...on a big scale."

The designs range from wave machine, swinging in the swill, to gaint turbines, spinning in the tides and huge porpellers harnessing the currents. Another component is launched. There may yet be unexpected costs or challenges, it's still early days.

David Shukman, BBC news, in Leeds