Underwater Turbine Set to Be Used for Scottish Tidal Power

Anybody with a boat that has a propeller, that keeps that boat in the ocean, knows about algae and barnacles...They grow quickly, and just a small amount can cut the efficiency of the prop dramatically...Copper coating seems to help deter growth, but I don't see anything about that here...We'll see...

BBC News has a nice, little video on it here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-10952924

Though it never mentions what the prop material is, or any of the technology that goes into it, I'm doing my best to fight the cynic in me and say that they probably thought of some of the obvious hurdles that would need to be jumped over for this to work.

In the video, it's reported that Scotland wants to have 50% of their energy come from renewable sources by the end of 2020, is that an unreasonable goal? I'm not too certain on statistics / percentages of energy that come from renewable now.

The article states that this is "Scotland's first and only consented tidal power project"- I guess the key is the word "consented", because this is NOT the first tidal turbine to be installed in the Orkney test bed...