Startup Seeks to Tap the Mississippi River for Power

For more than a century, the Mississippi River has been one of the nation's most-important transportation corridors, a muddy, winding pathway for moving bulk commodities such as grain and coal and other goods.

Now, a New England startup company wants to harness the mighty river for a secondary purpose -- generating electricity.

The company, Free Flow Power Corp., is pursuing a $3 billion plan to install thousands of small electric turbines in the river bed, reaching from St. Louis to the Gulf of Mexico that would collectively generate 1,600 megawatts of electricity -- enough to power 1.5 million homes. - RedOrbit.com