Underwater Turbines Set To Generate Record Power

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Here’s a preview of the future. Twin underwater turbines are set to generate 1.2 megawatts of electricity off the coast of Northern Ireland by year’s end. New Scientist reports how the world’s largest tidal power project will use underwater turbines that look and work like wind power turbines, with blades up to 60 feet wide. Tidal currents will rotate the rotors at 10 to 20 revolutions per minute — a speed that Marine Current Turbines of the UK claims is too slow to affect marine life. The turbines will drive a gearbox that will drive an electric generator. The resulting electricity will be transmitted to the shore via an underwater cable. Eventually, MCT intends to build farms of turbines consisting of 10 to 20 pairs each. . . This is intriguing, probably necessary, and will doubtless lead to some kind of negative environmental issue(s). Let’s hope the Brits monitor the impacts of what sounds like a promising, hopefully sustainable, technology &mdash one desperately needed on our tough road to a new energy economy. JULIA WHITTY

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WE'LL BE BLUNT.

We have a considerable $390,000 gap in our online fundraising budget that we have to close by June 30. There is no wiggle room, we've already cut everything we can, and we urgently need more readers to pitch in—especially from this specific blurb you're reading right now.

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In "News Never Pays," our fearless CEO, Monika Bauerlein, connects the dots on several concerning media trends that, taken together, expose the fallacy behind the tragic state of journalism right now: That the marketplace will take care of providing the free and independent press citizens in a democracy need, and the Next New Thing to invest millions in will fix the problem. Bottom line: Journalism that serves the people needs the support of the people. That's the Next New Thing.

And it's what MoJo and our community of readers have been doing for 47 years now.

But staying afloat is harder than ever.

In "This Is Not a Crisis. It's The New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, why this moment is particularly urgent, and how we can best communicate that without screaming OMG PLEASE HELP over and over. We also touch on our history and how our nonprofit model makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there: Letting us go deep, focus on underreported beats, and bring unique perspectives to the day's news.

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