butcherboy wrote "You know what, the best thing might be to lock...

butcherboy wrote "You know what, the best thing might be to lock Ceto (goddess of sea monsters) and Ananconda in a cage and let them slug it out."

LOL great idea :)

acees wrote: "For all the stated strength in the Anacondas "body" the weak link will inevitably be in the "tail" where the force of that pulse needs to be turned into electricity and then cabled back to shore"

The first I heard about anaconda was on ABC news radio and people involved with research were saying if a storm or disaster happened with it then it is a "simple" matter of patching it up and sending it back out to shore. However after further reading the full-scale snake would be 7 metres(!) in diameter and 150 metres in length so I think they're overly optomistic! (Full-scale CETO-3 units will be 6 times the size of CETO-2, but I think the scaling up of ceto has less issues than scaling up an anaconda).

As you also touched on, each anaconda would need mechanics at the end of the tail for electricity generation - probably more complicated than CETO pumps. Here CETO has an advantage since all CETO units pump water up to a central plant offshore.

As butcherboy mentioned CETO is underwater and less vulnerable to storm activity. Also the water pipes that lead up to the power station can be placed underground, safe from environmental damage.

http://www.ceto.com.au/ceto-technology/pdf/pb-report-full.pdf is interesting reading for further risk analysis of CETO.

* disclaimer: I have no knowledge of mechanical engineering