CSI, NSF, & PEACH

Two exciting collaborative projects studying offshore currents and the Gulf Stream have been initiated by the Coastal Studies Institute (CSI) and the National Science Foundation, along with other partners. The NSF's project is called "Observational and Modeling Study of the Physical Processes Driving Exchanges between the Shelf and the Deep Ocean at Cape Hatteras" (PEACH). 

The CSI project is looking into the possibility of using an autonomous underwater vehicle, or AUV, and water driven turbines to harness the energy of the Gulf Stream to generate power. According to the Coastal Studies Institute "the movement of water [in the Gulf Stream] is some 45 times greater than the flow of every river on earth...[and harnessing] just 0.1 percent of the available power would yield the equivalent of 150 nuclear power plants." For more information see Kipp Tabb's article in the Coastal Review. 

Gabriel Matthias of the University of Georgia
Skidaway Institute of Oceanography
poses on the beach at Hatteras Island,
next to one of the antennas used in the radar
part of the PEACH study. Photo: Catherine Kozak

According to Catherine Kozak in a subsequent article in the Coastal Review, the complementary PEACH project "is meant to answer critical questions about the ocean’s response to climate change and the influence of marine ecosystem dynamics." Radar outposts have been set up at four locations on Hatteras and Ocracoke. Kozak explains that  "it’s the latest in an ambitious collaborative scientific project to decipher the dynamics of the water exchange between the continental shelf and the Gulf Stream, the ocean speedway that nearly brushes the crook of the Outer Banks.” For more information see Catherine Kozak's article in the Coastal Review. 

This month's Ocracoke Newsletter is the entertaining story of Calvin Wilkerson and his Condomed Nautilus. You can read it here: https://www.villagecraftsmen.com/news042117.htm.