A RISING TIDE LIFTS ALL GRIDS

IN 1851, CHARLES BABBAGE, THE ENGLISH MATHEMATICIAN and inventor, found himself preoccupied with what might happen should coal mines—then and now one of the primary sources of usable energy—become depleted. He concluded that “the sea itself offers a perennial source of power hitherto almost unapplied.” Babbage was talking about tides, those lunar-guided movements of the world’s oceans, and the very synonym of dependable constancy. But while his Difference Engine, a mechanical calculator seen as a seminal forerunner to the computer, would essentially go on to remake our world, Babbage’s ideas about tidal power drifted in the undercurrent for the next century and a half, largely the province of dreamers.

Lately, however, buoyed by successful demonstration projects and a new interest in renewable energy bolstered even further by Europe’s anticipated turning off of Russian taps, tidal energy is moving increasingly into the