| Penzhina Bay | |
|---|---|
| Пе́нжинская губа́ | |
 Location of Penzhin Bay in the Sea of Okhotsk | |
| Location | North Asia |
| Coordinates | 61°12′N163°00′E / 61.200°N 163.000°E /61.200; 163.000 |
| Type | Bay |
| Primary inflows | Penzhina river |
| Primary outflows | Shelikhov Gulf |
| Basin countries | Russia |
| Max. length | 300 km (190 mi) |
| Max. depth | 62 m (203 ft) |
 Interactive map of Penzhina Bay | |
Penzhina Bay (Russian:Пе́нжинская губа́,Penzhinskaya guba) is a long and narrow bay off the northwestern coast ofKamchatka,Russia. The bay has one of the strongest tides in the world, which prompted several power station proposals.
Penzhina Bay is the upper right arm ofShelikhov Bay in the northeastern corner of theSea of Okhotsk. It is bounded on the east by theKamchatka Peninsula and on the west by the Taygonos Peninsula, which separates it fromGizhigin Bay. The bay is entered between Cape Taygonos (60°34' N, 160°11' E) to the west and Cape Bozhedomova (60°18' N, 161°53' E) to the east.Cape Povorotnyy lies to the east-northeast of Cape Taygonos. It is about 300 km (186 mi) long and 65 km (40 mi) wide. Near its middle, two peninsulas narrow it to 30 km (18.6 mi), formingThe Gorlo. There is ice in the bay from October to May. It has the highest tides of any bay on the Pacific Ocean: 9 m (29.5 ft), 12.9 m (42.3 ft) maximum, versus 17 m (56 ft) in theBay of Fundy. Its basin is very thinly populated.
The riverPenzhina flows into the head of the bay. It is 713 km (443 mi) long and flows east, then south, then southwest to reach the bay.
The town of Penzhina was located on the middle Penzhina River and was visited byGeorge Kennan in 1866. The major tributary of the Penzhina is the Aklan, Oklan or Khayakha River which flows southeast and joins the Penzhina about 50 miles from its mouth.
In 1669 the Russians built theostrog ofAklansk, which was used to subdue the localKoryaks and was an important base on the route south fromAnadyrsk to theKamchatka peninsula before the sea route fromOkhotsk opened up. It was attacked by the Koryaks several times and later abandoned.
Between 1849 and 1900,Americanwhaleships huntedbowhead whales in the bay.[1][2][3] On 11 August 1867, thebarqueStella (270 tons), ofNew Bedford, Capt. Ebenezer F. Nye, was wrecked onKrayny on the western side of the bay. Two men were killed as the barque was smashed to pieces. The rest of the crew were rescued by several nearby vessels.[4][5][6]
During a five-day period in late September 1968, theSovietfactory shipVladivostok and its fleet ofwhale catchers illegally caught sixty-sixbalaenids (likely bowheads) in the bay.[7]
The tides in thePenzhin Bay of theSea of Okhotsk are the highest for thePacific Ocean, reaching a height of 13.4 metres (44 ft).[8] The tides inShelikhov Bay are of the diurnal type. The area of Penzhin Bay basin is 20,530 km2.[9][10] Given that the average magnitude of tide is equal to 10 metres (33 ft), this gives the diurnal flow of water in the bay as 410.6 cubic kilometres (98.5 cu mi) or average discharge4.75×106 m3•s−1.
The passing stream has its ownpotential energy, which in thegravity field of Earth is above zero only in the case of non-zero head of water () and can be expressed as follows:
where denotes potential energy; — density ofsea water, equal to 1,027 kg/m3; — area of basin; — height of the tide and —gravitational acceleration, set to 9.81 m/s2. The part of the expression in brackets denotes terms defining the mass of water passing through the basin daily.
As can be seen in formula (1), the potential energy becomes zero in the case of zero head of water and in the case of equal heights of head and tide. If considering this formula as a function of head level (), it has a form ofparabolic dependence, with its maximum at = 2• or at m. This value of gives two times lower height of tide in the bay and twice smaller average discharge of water — 5 m and2.38×106 m3•s−1 (205.3 km3/day), correspondingly.
The substitution of obtained parameters into (1) and dividing it by the day length in seconds gives the average capacity 120 GW. The latter one yields 1,054TW•h or 3.79×1018 Joules of energy annually. Depending on the efficiency of conversion of potential energy into electricity, the total quantity of electricity and electric capacity will have somewhat lower values. If one assumes an efficiency of conversion of 96%, this gives an average electric capacity of 115 GW and an available amount of electricity of 1,012 TW•h or 3.64×1018 J per year.
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