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Bloomberg has a report on the ambitions of one time Australian tidal power company Atlantis - Morgan Stanley-Backed Atlantis Targets India, China for Tidal Power Plants.

Atlantis Resources Corp., an ocean- current turbine maker backed by Morgan Stanley, plans to expand in China, India and South Korea after winning a bid in the U.K. to build the world’s largest tidal-power project.

Atlantis Resources may start building a 50 megawatt tidal farm by 2012 in Gujarat, a western Indian state, and conduct commercial-scale trials in South Korea, Timothy Cornelius, the chief executive officer, said an interview today.

“China’s the next big market for tidal energy,” Cornelius, 34, said in Singapore at the Clean Energy conference. “It has the most natural tidal resources in the world and can be home to more than 1,000 megawatts of tidal energy.”

Global production of electricity harnessing the ocean waves may climb ten-fold to as much as 300 megawatts in the next couple of years, said Cornelius, a former submersible engineer who splits his time between Singapore and London. The potential to produce marine power economically is about 24,000 megawatts, he said. It costs 2.5 million pounds ($4.01 million) per megawatt for a minimum 200 megawatt-tidal project, he said.

Reuters has a report on interest in developing geothermal power stations in the Fukushima area - Japanese firms considering geothermal plants in Fukushima.

Japanese firms are looking at building several geothermal plants in a volcanic zone in the area worst hit by last years nuclear disaster, a project that could gain momentum after the government eased restrictions on drilling this week.

The head of a group of firms that have studied the potential of a geothermal project in Fukushima said on Friday a consortium of about 10 companies would meet local people by early May to explain their plans to build plants with a total capacity of 270 megawatts, which would be Japans biggest.

The consortium plans to work with local communities, including those who run hotels and inns at hot springs, to develop geothermal energy, Masaho Adachi, the chairman of Japan Geothermal Developers Council said.

The council has already held a meeting with local government officials in the central zone of Fukushima, home to the nuclear plant crippled by an earthquake and tsumani last year, he said.

Along with high costs, protests by local communities fearful of the impact of a geothermal plant on hot springs have prevented such projects from taking off in the past.

"We should spend together a period of more than 10 years before having geothermal plants running," he said in an interview with Reuters on Friday, referring to activities such as collecting data, test drilling and environment assessment. Adachi declined to name the companies forming the consortium.

The Nikkei newspaper earlier said that the Fukushima project by a consortium of companies including Idemitsu Kosan Co and Inpex Corp would cost around 100 billion yen ($1.2 billion), with operations set to start in 2020.

Since the crisis, interest in renewable energy has jumped and a government subsidy scheme, similar to those in many countries in Europe, to force utilities to buy renewable electricity is due to start in July. ...

Studies show Japan, a land of volcanoes, ranks as the worlds third-richest nation in geothermal power. A government study last year showed it has the potential for business to derive 14,000 MW of energy, but it currently has only 540 MW worth of commercial plants due to restrictions on development in national parks, where most resources lie.