Where Science Meets Fiction
City energy from river and ocean currents.
Something is already happening downstream of every bridge pier on Earth. The water splits around the column, passes it on both sides, and where it rejoins it does not simply close. It sheds. A rolling street of alternating vortices forms in the wake – one detaching from the left, then one from the right, then…
There are roughly 600,000 bridges in the United States alone. A large portion of them cross rivers. Every one of those rivers moves water through city centers, industrial zones, and residential districts, 24 hours a day, without stopping. The concrete piers holding those bridges are already sitting in that current, splitting it, generating turbulence, and…