Remember this, wind is more efficient than solar, and water is 784 times more dense than air! Source: http://www.theweatherprediction.com/habyhints/216/
That means the same 5MPH wind vs 5MPH water current produces in theory 784 TIMES more power.
And we especially in NJ have a lot of WHAT? LAND? NOOOO that is expensive! Do we have a lot of bridges and water ways that we could drop turbines in? YES WE DO!
Do we have any turbines in our water ways harnessing this RENEWABLE CLEAN energy? Nope!
Think about this, what are the sewer run offs on roads? They lead to the oceans around these parts right? That is a HUGE amount of energy discharged into the ocean... And do we try to reclaim that? NOPE! What do we do? We instead try to put computer chips (solar panels) on homes to catch the 4 hours of light a day on average that shines on them to catch ~15% of the energy it even receives!
My Point is simple, while people argue about wind and solar, they fail to realize there are many technologies that are far superior especially for a given region that are not being used. Imagine if every bridge (which already has power lines on it) could be 4 times a day harnessing the tides in/out! A slow 5 mph current is remember in theory 784 TIMES more energy than a wind turbine of the same size moving at 5 MPH!
We need to begin thinking more about energy not as how we are taught to think about it, but how it is everywhere, and we just need to harness it! Energy is not lost, it is always with us, our job is to capture it for our use in our machines!