Sewage treatment and food processing?

The Navy's plan to send attack dolphins after enemy swimmers is running into trouble, from the animal-rights crowd. So the sea service is bankrolling an alternative project: an "electrical swimmer barrier... "

Electricty plus water usually makes for a dangerous combination. But this system will be "non-lethal," promises Bedford, Massachusetts' Diversified Technologies, Inc., which recently won a Navy contract to start development on the thing. "Intermittent, spatially-distributed... pulses of short duration" should be able to deter swimmers with a fairly low "risk of lethality," the company says. The firm has already had luck, producing similar "pulsed-electric-field" equipment for "sewage-treatment and food-processing."

[From Navy Looks to Zap Swimming Foes | Danger Room from Wired.com]