Red marker indicates Bell’s Mill location in Edmunds Township in eastern Maine. Click to view a more detailed map. (Courtesy of Google Maps.)
A team of three archeologists clambered over the ruins of an Edmunds, Maine, tide mill this past weekend to map, measure and photograph the visible remains of the mill and associated docks and piers. Their work will result in a snapshot of the mill site as it is today, and before time, storms and tides cause further destruction of the remaining materials. What’s left of the mill consists mostly of the wooden timbers, planks and rock piles that once were part of a dam and mill buildings.
Digest of recent tidal energy development news worldwide by David Hoyle
General Interest
This article provides an overview of recent tidal and wave energy projects worldwide with emphasis on Europe. There is a link to a comprehensive report, Ocean Energy Key Trends and Statistics 2021, which covers ocean energy trends worldwide. Investment in ocean energy increases 50% in 2021 – Energy
Oscilla’s Triton-C uses the relative displacement between a surface vessel and a submerged inertial ring to harvest wave energy. (Courtesy of Oscilla Power.)
Visitors approaching the Van Wyck-Lefferts tide mill by boat. (Photo courtesy of Huntington Historical Society.)
This coming summer and fall, the public can tour the Van Wyck-Lefferts tide mill in Huntington, Long Island, N.Y. A total of 13 more tours are being offered in 2022. The next tour is Monday, June 13, and the last tour of the season will be October 25.
The Van Wyck-Lefferts mill is the best preserved 18th century U.S. tide-powered grist mill known to remain in its original location. It is also one of only two remaining U.S. tide mills with machinery and millstones intact. The site is maintained by the Van Wyck-Lefferts Tide Mill Sanctuary, Inc., who is continuing its multi-year fundraising and restoration campaign for the mill building and dam.
Bell farmhouse and bedlogs of the 1780 tide mill. (Photo by Bud Warren.)
Tide Mill Institute has received a grant of $3,000 from the Eastern Maine Conservation Initiative (EMCI) to support archaeological work this summer at the Bell mill sites in Edmunds, Washington County, Maine. The work will be done by Independent Archaeological Consulting LLC of Dover, N.H.
This summer, Tide Mill Institute and EMCI will sponsor an archaeological study of the two mill sites on the property to explore these examples of the county’s early milling culture and to develop an inventory record of all previous tide mills in the area.
About 1780, Robert Bell, from St. Andrews Scotland, built a tide mill at a likely spot in western Cobscook Bay. It operated for some years under his direction and that of his family. That mill ceased operation, and the Bells created a fresh water mill further up the stream. A generation or so later, a freshet tore that mill apart, but by then, some family members had switched their activity to farming and forest products. Today, those activities have morphed into an active organic farm operated by the seventh, eighth and ninth generations of the Bell family.
There will be several public meetings so the public can view the remains of the mills. Email info@tidemillinstitute.comfor more information.
Old York Historical Society of York, Maine, will present a free Zoom webinar: The Rise and Fall of Tide Mills in York: Exploring Colonial-Era Technology and the Future of Renewable Energy. Featuring four speakers from the Tide Mill Institute, the webinar will describe how tide mills work, the remaining evidence of these mills in York, how to access tide mill information on line, and where tidal power is still in use today.
The program starts at 6:30 p.m. Eastern Standard Time (New York time) on Thursday, March 24. There is no charge for attending, but advance registration is required. More information is available on the society’s website.
Digest of recent tidal energy development news by David Hoyle
Author’s note: While culling articles on tidal and wave energy for this digest from my Google Alerts feeds I was pleased to see a large number of articles from the US. Previously, UK articles on tidal and wave energy were dominant. It’s encouraging that the US Department of Energy is supporting research by its National Renewable Energy Laboratory as well as by universities on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. Total US tidal energy potential is estimated as 220 TWh/year (enough to power 21 million homes), while the total tidal potential for the UK is around 50 TWh/year. Note that the US wave energy potential at 1,400 TWh/year dwarfs the tidal potential, so I think it’s worth our while to keep abreast of wave energy developments!
The Atlantic Marine Energy Center (AMEC) led by UNH has been awarded nearly $10 million from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to expand scientific understanding and study the overall effectiveness of wave energy and tidal energy conversion. UNH-led Atlantic Marine Energy Center Receives Nearly $10 Million From DOE
