Floating Houses: The Wave of The Future?

They are in fact for sale. There is a small floating community in, I beleive, the Netherlands. I will look to post link. Program aired on Discovery or similar recently.

cr3

Floating houses are big business in Holland.

Have you ever been to Amsterdam? Half of the city is floating, the rest is drowning.

They build complete villages on the water, as this water is needed to keep the soil moist and thus keeping its volume.

If you could build a village on the seashore and tap the energy in the tides (using the houses as floaters), the power needs would be greatly covered. But building it that strong that it survives storms is another problem.

I've seen a few of these designs on TV, but wouldn't it be a great basis for a new enviromentally cooperative New Orleans? I like the idea of combining the tidal movements to electrical generation. I mean, the idea of a whole neighborhood supplying energy to the mix as the homes bob up and down with the tides. Instead of trying to hold back the ocean from a city below sea level, let it in and use baffles to prevent storm surges and waves from being unmanagable side forces! If posts are placed in the ground to hold the home to it's location, then it should be a simple enough task to attach a drive mechanism for a small gearbox and generator. I have to wonder how much tide would be available and how many homes it would take to create a usable amount of energy. Maybe in the Bay of Fundy instead???? I can see it combined with solar and wind energy to charge batteries, but I also have to wonder just how to gear it up high enough to make such an inpercievable change move the generator fast enough to produce. It would no doubt be a very small current, but if the apparatus was cheap enough..... maybe one huge "bull gear" driving many very small and inexpensive generators.... I LIKE it! It should also help to stabilize the house a bit, I would think.