WINDING RIVER New technology could harness the power of Mississippi, turning it into a power plant

The Mississippi River has been responsible for a lot of things in Louisiana. Generating electricity hasn't been one of them.

Navigation, sediment, debris and the state's flat terrain have hindered development of any kind of hydraulically generated power on the largest river in the nation. Louisiana gets just 1 percent of its electricity from hydraulic power.

But a new nationwide focus on renewable sources of power -- such as wind, water and the sun -- and new technologies could turn the Mighty Mississippi into a power plant responsible for generating electricity for from 640,000 to 1.3 million homes or more.

"Literally there could be 100s to 1,000s of megawatts in the Mississippi River," said Wayne Krouse, CEO of Hydro Green Energy LLC in Houston. "It's a very large potential resource."

Krouse's company has six preliminary permit applications in with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to study putting its technology in the Mississippi River. Another company, Free Flow Power LLC, of Manchester, Mass., has 10 times that many applications pending before FERC.

Free Flow intends to spend up to $3 billion installing turbines up and down the Mississippi River from Illinois to the mouth of the river, including at 36 sites in Louisiana, according to Dan Irvin, CEO of Free Flow. Additionally, the Center for Bioenvironmental Research at Tulane University is working with Global Green, an environmental organization, on a yearlong study looking at the viability of river power for the Holy Cross neighborhood and for Tulane University's planned Riversphere research and museum.

"There are a billion liters per minute on average coursing through New Orleans," said Doug Meffert of the Tulane University Center for Bioenvironmental Research. "It's been a source that's largely been underutilized for energy."

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