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Harnessing Vertical Sea Temperature Gradient
Sterling D. Allan writes "Sea Solar Power Inc., run by three generations of James Hilbert Andersons, has developed a solar power technology that does not fluctuate with the weather, but is available constantly. Their solution is to harness the solar energy stored in the sea by tapping the thermal gradient that exists naturally between the surface and deep waters, using a reverse refrigeration cycle. The modeling and testing done by the Anderson family over three generations since 1962 predicts that the cost of energy generation through this method will be within a price range comparable to nuclear, coal, natural gas, and other contemporary grid power plants. Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion, or OTEC, was invented in 1881 by a French scientist, Jacques Arsene D'Arsonval. SSP should be ready to build their first full prototype 2-3 years from now."
Aquethermal, if you please! It's only solar in the sense that all power on Earth apart from geothermal is solar.
For the love of God, please learn to spell "ridiculous"!!!
Just like hydro power, this one has the problem of disrupting the environment, albeit a very local environment. By moving water against the normal gradient, you will warm up water that's supposed to be cold, and cool off water that's supposed to be warm. I could imagine plankton blooms and oxygen depletion, among other side effects.
Passive solar collection (photovoltaic and otherwise) and wind power are really the only truly "green" power sources.
There exists no way of exchanging information without making judgments. --Bene Gesserit Axiom
The seaweed is always greener In somebody else's lake You dream about going up there But that is a big mistake Just look at the world around you Right here on the ocean floor Such wonderful things surround you What more is you lookin' for?
Further, what of the potential for secondary effects? Climate changes brought about by changes in ocean current temperatures? Remember, el nino/la nina are caused by a change of only a few degrees. That's not unforseeable for a large-scale technology such as this.
Oh, and BTW - it makes a lot more sense to base this on something like an oil rig, rather than a ship. Just sayin', is all.
This certainly sounds like a terrific idea...not only do you get basically free power, but you also get desalinization in the bargain. Abundant power plus abundant fresh water has the potential to completely remake the countries in the equatorial region...the region, coincidentally, where these power/desalinization plants will be most efficient.
However, we really ought to know by know the policy of TANSTAAFL...earlier generations have blithely pursued their agendas without thought to the long-term consequences to the environment, and today we are slowly starting to recognize the signs of these consequences in our environment. Given that the slight amount of global warming we have so far witnessed has caused an unprecedented amount and rapidity of glacial retreat, with truly global consequences. If you doubt this, just ask the Europeans, whose traditionally balmy climate is fast disappearing due to the weakening of the Gulf Stream.
With this in mind, is it really wise to start monkeying with the thermal gradient of the oceans at the equator?
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
Sounds like some whacko marketing speak to me.
"SSP should be ready to build their first full prototype 2-3 years from now.""
It will run Linux (everything else will by 2007-2008)
I did a report on OTEC when I was in junior high--18 years ago--based on an article in Scientific American. There are prototype facilities in a number of countries--I visited the facility in Hawaii five years ago, which was at least a decade old then.
It's an intriguing idea, but this smacks of somebody trying to get publicity to bring in venture capital or something of the sort.
If the energy they're taking is but a tiny, tiny fraction of the thermal energy availible in the ocean (which i think is most likely the case) then it won't be an issue.
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why not just harness the wave energy?
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
The parent is right on. This is just trading one environmental stressor for another.
Finding God in a Dog
Nice to see concepts popularized (though hardly invented) by Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri being realized, considering this is basically like a Thermocline Transducer.
Whenever we humans tap into our environment to harness energy we usually ruin it quite a bit. I wonder what kind of long-term consequences such energy retrieval might have.
Oh, there couldn't POSSIBLY be any environmental consequences from everyone doing this on a large scale. Surely, nothing is dependent on that gradient. One big, lukewarm ocean....yup recipe for success.
This is the best Democracy money can buy?!?!?
Do these happy idiots know that ocean temp and currents influence weather patterns?
I'm not going to be too happy exchanging a few KW of electricity for another ice age.
We don't want the US invading the ocean. Do we?
There will be some group, somewhere, objecting to something about this.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
'Has developed'? How about 'is developing'?
I mean, in the last year, I've read about thermal stacks, hydrogen generation using thermal power, horizontally-oriented wind turbines, and probably some other alternative power methods. They're all great ideas, with great possibility, but the summary for every one reads like a sales pitch.
AC: Only on slashdot... could the sentence "My hovercraft is full of eels." be moderated "+4, Insightful
It's difficult to even quantify the amount of energy stored in the ocean. You know that oft-quoted tidbit of how a single large hurricane has, by far, more energy than all of the energy that would be produced from all of the nuclear arsenols in the world? That hurricane receives 99% of its energy from the sea, and at most, it lowers the local ocean by under a degree (and most of that isn't because of draining energy, but rather, from stirring up colder water from down below.)
I'm sure someone can go into the math of exactly how much energy the ocean contains by multiplying water's heat capacity to the amount of water in the oean, but I'm too lazy to do that. The fact of the matter is that there is more energy in the ocean than you can possibly imagine, and that even if we changed our entire electrical grid to run off of the ocean energy, it would barely have an effect, even locally.
Set up shop in Caribbean or Gulf of Mexico and maybe as a added benefit, such energy harvesting, could decreasing hurricane potential by cooling surface water temperature. This would be win-win, but I am sure that it would also be disruptive to some marine life so maybe a win-win-lose sometime you just can't have it all.
We are warming the oceans with global warming, so now we get to cool them by tapping the ocean gradient (I assume, since anything that removes energy from the ocean will make it endoergic). Isn't that just too perfect? I think these guys are on to something.
Why would you trust a testimonial when choosing hosting?
What? No 'Act Locally, Impact Globally'?
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Weren't they recently worried about the ocean currents that carry warm water to Europe essentially turning off?
Maybe a bunch of these stations strategically placed would keep our various underwater thermal currents moving along.
As for ship vs oil rig, my understanding was that oil rigs were moored to the seabed, compared to a ship being anchored. I'm not sure how feasible it'd be to moore an oil rig in ultra-deep waters.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
With this in mind, is it really wise to start monkeying with the thermal gradient of the oceans at the equator?
Do the math. The entire world's energy budget isn't enough to make even a microscopic change in the thermal gradients of the ocean.
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"...using a reverse refrigeration cycle."
We have a name for those. They're called engines.
Fitzghon
What's the cost of changing the temperature gradients of the ocean? What will happen to sea life if their environment changes by a few degrees?
I've been reading about this since the 70s. It's a great idea and I can't understand why no one has built a prototype yet. Most of the systems I read about proposed using something like amonia since it was dealing with a temperature difference rather than high temperatures. Some chemicals like amonia boil at very low temperatures. They don't produce the power steam does but it's a stable source. Deep ocean temperatures are near freezing where as surface temperatures can be 40 to 50 degrees higher in the same area. Some have complained about cooling surface water. The ocean is a mighty big heat sink and it's doubtful plants that are spread out would have much affect. In truth it might help offset some of the surface warming caused by global warming. I'm not sure enough plants could be built that would drop ocean surface temperature one degree. Temperatures have already raised that much in the last 100 years.
What will the do when a giant squid inevitably crawls up the pipe and gets stuck.
Play Command HQ online
Except that the Gulf Stream is too weak to carry much heat to Europe. It's yet another myth that most people are unaware is a myth.
Want to know why Europe is warmer than Eastern North America even though they're at the same latitude?
It's right here
It's caused by a combination of the Rocky Mountains and the fact that oceans store heat in summer and release it in winter.
Another climate scare debunked! You read it here on
Tubby or not tubby. Fat is the question
Do you know how to do arithmetic?
Apparently not.
Or will we merely be trading less coastal damage in the south east coast for rampant drought in the east and northeast.
I wonder if these guys know about the new /. slogan. Might have to change it to "Cogs and Coulombs".
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
Won't this mess up the natural mixing currents that already go on? The global warming crowd is convinced that the ocean's natural mixing patterns are being disrupted and this will cause unpredictable climate changes and they have some data to back up their statements that a previously stable system is being disrupted, but now people are talking about deliberate disruption of the temperature gradiants and thermocline?
It really does not sound responsible to me. We're already tampering with the climate and simply don't know what the real effect is from any particular human activity, but we ought to be able to anticipate that transferring energy from one side of the thermocline to the other is going to cause at least a local disruption in a natural system.
Just because it doesn't burn fossil fuels doesn't automatically make it a good idea...
However, we really ought to know by know the policy of TANSTAAFL...earlier generations have blithely pursued their agendas without thought to the long-term consequences to the environment, and today we are slowly starting to recognize the signs of these consequences in our environment.
TANSTAAFL = There's A Neat Saying That Acronyms Are For Losers?
SSP should be ready to build their first full prototype 2-3 years from now.
2005?
Trolling is a art,
why can't they use a heat-exchanger with conjunction to the one-way thermal transfer materials (I think a product of nano-technology) that was being tested and was slashdotted last year so they don't have to worry about any marine growth growing or dying in the plant itself?
And why not also use the energy to produce methanol or methane using the freshwater and probably carbon dioxide from the air or from industrial waste from the mainland? Heck, even ethanol so it can be used in cars to help reduce reliance on foreign sources of energy?
The problem here is the huge quantity of thermal energy that needs to be exchanged for a small amount of useful work. To generate work between a 80 degree f source and a 50 degree f sink the best you can do is around 7 percent efficiency.
The OTEC technique has been a topic found in magazines like Popular Science and Popular Mechanics for a couple of decades now. Cheap oil made it a bad economic choice.
Now that oil prices have increased a lot and are unlikely to go down, OTEC becomes more attractive from an economic standpoint. Unfortunately we DO need to consider what impact it may have on the ocean because we are moving heat from one place to another and that movement impacts global features that control the weather and affect food supplies.
I do find it interesting that a critique of the project was written by a Mary-Sue Haliburton. If there was another 'L' in her last name it would resemble that of an organization associated with the oil industry.
The ocean is so grossly unimaginably big that we would need an absolutely huge operation to even cause a measurable effect. If you really tried to change the temperature by even a fraction of a degree using this method you would have to pump extremely large quantities of water---quantities so large that I don't think anyone would ever consider building something so massive.
People sometimes forget the scale of things. On a global scale, we are not even part of the equation.
But you also have to consider the opportunity costs of doing this. If we would raise the global atmospheric temperature 1/10 of a degree with all the carbon we were burning, what will the net effect be if we can convert a significant portion of our energy sources from burning carbon to mixing a small amount of cold and warm water?
The radical sect of Islam would either see you dead or "reverted" to Islam.
Don't worry. Global warming will make it all balance out.
"Prefiero morir de pie que vivir siempre arrodillado!"
There is no mention of obvious environmental impact. Obviously, warming the ocean floor on large scale will disturb the ecosystem balance. Does anyone know if they research how localized the impact will be? Before anyone says that I am huffing and puffing, the equivalent of this for humans would be like having a permanent unlabeled source of constant fire somewhere in the middle of a populated region.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
Deja vu!?!
There is a global circulation system called thermohaline. Basically in three relative small areas of the oceans the water sinks until the bottom, and then spread around the world. This water slowly go up again and the system is closed with surface warmer waters flowing in direction of the areas of generation.
I'm not even considering the energetic balance of the proposed structure, but if it works it might reduce the vertical thermal gradient and make the thermohaline circulation weaker. Maybe stop it. The movie "The Day After Tomorrow" is a fantasy about it, but be sure at least that the surface temperature on the North Atlantic would reduce since is one of those areas of generation of deep waters. You can imagine how would be the winter on Europe and North America? Would need a lot of energy to keep people warm there!
Wikipedia entry on the subject of Ocean thermal energy conversion: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OTEC
I'd hardly call this "debunking". I happen to know David Battisti, and I think he's a good and credible atmospheric circulation researcher. On the other hand, plenty of other good and credible oceanographic circulation researchers I know would refute this, and have done extensive work on the amount of heat transported by the Gulf Stream, and its role in sustaining thermohaline circulation and associated climate effects. A press release about paper maketh noth scientific truth.
Not only that, but even if the Gulf Stream is not the primary deliverer of heat to northern Europe, the 20-line press release you cited does not claim that Europe's climate will not be affected by a change in thermohaline circulation.
So if you're searching for a thin vine to cling to the increasingly untenable view that carbon-loading of the atmosphere is not a major problem, better not grab too hard on this one.
I guess I am being punished by my mechanical engineering background.
It is possible that there is some good information on this site (somewhere), but quite frankly I do not know what you would want to waste time separating the real information from the quackery.
----- There are two kinds of people in this world, my friend; those with loaded guns, and those who dig.
Fission reactors, our only current form of nuclear power, split uranium nuclei into smaller fragments and thereby release energy. However, to form the uranium atom in the first place from smaller constituents therefore required energy. This energy is thought to have come from a supernova ~6 billion years ago, predating the formation of the solar system. Thus current reactors are, by some (possibly warped!) definition, still using fossilized "solar" power. The same can also be said of geothermal which relies mainly on natural decay of nuclei formed by the same supernova.
Only if we ever get fusion reactors working then we really say that we are no longer reliant on solar based power...and that's because we will have made our own mini-sun.
I will have you know that the Total Cost of Ownership (TOC) of a Thermocline Transducer (TT) running Microsoft Windows (R) Generator Edition (TM) is far less than for a comparable TT system employing so called "Open Source" Operating System.
Regarding the future markets (RTFM), all equipment will soon run on Microsoft (R) Windows (TM) as businesses realize the long-term benifits (TM) of deploying a stable, secure, and maintenance-free software (ASS M-F S)
*Windows, Profit, and Future are registered trademarks of the Microsoft Corporation.
not that it could change the weather, currents and really mess everything up. The really scary thing is that a bribe and a lobbyist could ensure that, if it is developed, it gets used by someone somewhere. Stopping the bad ideas is one of our (yep - us, everyone because when its all done we let it happen) biggest problems.
Information should be free!
Of course we're already having an impact on global temperature. Obviously, some sort of analysis would need to be done to weigh the benefits of using such a system. But somehow I doubt it can be any worse than our coal burning power plants.
And there is an interesting question to answer: What is more important? Human lives? or the planet? We're of course temporary, so one could easily make the argument that the planet is much more important. But what is good for planet earth isn't necisarily what is good for the human race. There has to be some discussion as to this as well. Do we err on the side of humanity, or the planet?
Multiply a kilowatt or so per square meter insolation by the size of the ocean, take seven percent of that, and get back to me on whether you think it's enough.
Brackets contain world's first nanosig, highly magnified:[.]
the cost of energy generation through this method will be within a price range comparable to nuclear, coal, natural gas, and other contemporary grid power plants
Nice to see they've finally stopped trotting out the "energy too cheap to meter" meme. Because I think we all realize that even if it were too cheap to meter, they'd still meter on it just because they could.
The only thing is that you need easy access to deep ocean close to land in order for this to work. In other words you need a 2000m (or deeper) ocean trench a short easy distance from the users of your power. Take a look at one of those global maps showing ocean depth and you'll see that pacific islands are about the only place you get this.
This technology is unlikely to ever have practical application beyond the pacific rim.
It seems to me that there are a number of technologies that have the potential to replace coal at a reasonable cost: 1. nuclear (have you ever heard of the integral fast reactor?), 2. wind backed by hydro used as an energy storage facility, 3. aquathermal or what ever it is we're going to call it. So why don't we stop arguing about which one it's going to be and just get on with it? Do all of them, find out which is the cheapest. Do we really know?
Any which way we take energy out of our environment, we will be changing it from it's "normal" state. Solar power turns the sun's rays into electricity rather than heat, making the world cooler, and wind power takes it's energy from the speed of the wind, thereby slowing the wind down.
I agree that these are both extremely marginal, but I suspect the effect on the ocean temperature is equally marginal.
That said, it'd be really interesting to see some hard math on the impact of solar and wind power... Just out of pure curiousity.
I know someone who works for this company, and it looks like a really great idea. Of course he said the problem was that Andersons always push for huge breakthroughs instead of incrmental developments. He used to always complain that they would never get a product out. Maybe they will though. Maybe they will
Madre de Dios! Es El Pollo Diablo! -- Captain Blondebeard
Under-ocean electric generation methods are doomed to be radically costly to maintain. Damn, ever see what salt water does to most machines over time? Not pretty.
Horns are really just a broken halo.
http://www.thebesttrek.net/forum/index.php?topic=3 61.0
http://www.thebesttrek.net/forum/index.php - visit my FORUM
Think of all the energy you'll save not running your air con though! It's a win/win situation!
from their own site: A vacuum is pulled on the incoming warm water to remove the oxygen so as to prevent marine growth on the inside of the plant. call me a dumb biologist, but is there enough energy stored in the 40 degrees F difference between the warm and cold seawater to pull this vacuum and remove a significant amount of dissolved oxygen/nitrogen? I do have my doubts on that.
Combine that with the fact the technique takes a very long time to move into production and is still 2-3 years away from actual implementation, i'd say that this technique will not work ever. I hope I am wrong, because it sure looks like a reasonably clean energy source.
Depending where you draw it from, water from the bottom of the ocean will contain more salt and nutrients which might upset some ecosystems, but so does a village pumping it's sewage into the ocean.
This space is intentionally staring blankly at you
At the point of generation, there is massive environmental disruption. The wind downstream from a wind farm is more turbulent, colder and slower moving than the wind upstream.
That energy has to come from somewhere, you know. Oh, and the foundations they build the windmill pylons on? Making the concrete releases thousands of tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere.
Oh, and by the way - Slashdot Janitors - why the fuck have you broken <sub> tags? Cretins.
If you have too high an input energy pumping the water from such great depths, you lose efficiency. Where is the energy for the pump going to come from?
I won't get into efficiencies of other methods, I know most sources are horrendous too. This technology is probably too self limiting to become widespread.
Ignorance is not a crime; neither should it be a way of life
Congress control $ = inmates run the asylum
Tired myths have held sway over human thinking since time out of mind.
I cried real tears when Li Mu Bai died.
We'll err on the side of making the rich richer ... same as always.
Reason why there is hope for the future generation #364:
"I wish my grass was emo so it could cut itself."
About Brown's Gas:
Brown's Gas Information and Eagle Research
As for "When the electricity (in the Brown's Gas) is released by the 'flame,' it comes out as electricity and the water 'implodes' to it's original liquid form, with no heat and no expansion first."
As you said, pure rubbish. It does explode first to produce water vapor, and the condensation of water vapor to liquid water does liberate large quantity of heat.
Computational Chemistry products and services.
The US generates and uses about 3800 billion kwh of electricity per year.
ASSUMING this thing can convert a 40 degree F (22 C) temperature gradient into electricity at 100% efficiency (which it can't, just looking for order of magnitude kind of thing here) then a 6ft (2m) diameter pipe sucking water in at a 20fps (6m/s) velocity will suck up enough water to generate 1500MW.
Ignoring peak demand and all that, it would take 300 (300) of them to power the entire US.
Assuming an average ocean depth of 1000ft (300m), which I suspect is considerably on the shallow side, it would take 230,000 years (7.25 Ts) to suck up the entire contents of the oceans. By this time, perhaps the sun would restore the temperature gradient to its original magnitude.
All in all, one of the less moronic alternative power schemes I've heard of.
p.s. - I'm not sure if I'm assisting or mocking our metric friends.
pebble bed reactors don't go china syndrome. environmentalists attitudes about nuclear is based on decades-old technology and watching too much "silkwood"
thermocline, solar, biodiesel, wind, tidal turbine, wave generated, etc.: these are all very cute boutique energy sources. but when all put together and maxed out in terms of realization of potential they won't dent 5% of our energy needs
oil and gas and coal are incredibly dirty and even geopolitically dangerous and increasingly expensive
put it all together and pebble bed reactors are an environmentalist's and energy policy maker's best friend
now we just need the lowest common denominator of uneducated environmentalist's opinions to catch up with reality
ps: YOU CAN'T MAKE BOMBS OUT OF IT
educate yourself, don't let your uneducated fears dictate your opinion
as time goes by, nuclear is only going to look more and more attractive to this world, once everyone gets a real education of the positves and negatives of nuclear compared to everything else
because the biggest thing going against nuclear really is only inertia and ignorance
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
It seems from the OTEC Fact Sheet that the site isn't actually operational any more. Digging deeper on the SSP website also finds some reference to the Hawaii site.
Can't you see that everyone is buying station wagons?
Looks like we have covered this topic rather well.
The discussions were better on those, too.
Jack
Considering as how we are sentient, and the planet isn't. I'd vote for humans. But the apes might disagree.
The prisoner of hope is sustained and encouraged by his hope, even as he is confined by it.
And this, folks, is exactly how bad ideas get implemented.
"No, really, how bad could a nuclear explosion be? I'm sure all those sailors looking at the pretty lights will be ok."
"No, really, we don't need no stinking forest management program. No one could ever use all the wood that is in the Rainforest. It's practically infinite!"
Someone looks at something bigger than he's used to, figures that nothing could ever be bigger, and goes about implementing something that completely breaks if this assumption is incorrect.
If you think 1 byte is all you'll ever need for a number, allocate a long. And if you can't do the math, don't do it.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
On top of that, the amount of electrical energy you get out of OTEC is very small compared to the total amount of heat transferred. 40F to 80F is a pretty thin heat gradient compared to nuclear or fossil fuels, so the basic laws of thermodynamics dictate a much lower thermal efficiency. On top of that, you're dealing with low pressures and low pressure gradients, so the practical inefficiencies are going to be worse than conventional fossil fuels too.
So you can expect an OTEC plant to be a much worse CO2 producer than even the worst coal-burning plants.
Yeah, there is nothing new about this, I think this is some kind of a slashvertisement. The technology that OTEC has been developing in this field is interesting. Hopefully it will ultimately pan out.
t ml
:)
Here's where I have seen more about this technology before:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.06/craven.h
http://www.nrel.gov/otec/
Enjoy
You guys are a discrace when it comes to nerdiness!!!
Don't you realize that the sun and yes.. global warming will more than offset any amount of loss caused by this process??
Sheeesh..
you guys sound like a bunch of anti-tech fanatics!!
Just like the windmills at Altamont have stopped the wind from blowing.
Gosh, I am disappointed in the quality of nerds these days. Ever heard of the back of an envelope? For god's sake, units of energy are defined by how much they heat water, so it's not hard to figure this one out.
Projection from http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/ieo/world.html is that the world will use 645 quadrillion BTUs of energy per year in 2025. If we assume this all comes from the ocean at 100% efficiency, this would be enough to raise a patch of water, 100m deep by 1024km on a side, by 1 degree C. Insignificant next to the whole ocean? sure. But certainly significant compared to local or even regional climate variation! (not that hydrocarbons aren't worse, or that this can't be spread out but hey, now all the slashdot blather can be vaguely informed. sheesh).
How many inexhaustable resources have we exhausted? Heating up the deep ocean will eventually have quite negative effects. One example: huge pockets of frozen methane which will melt and get into the atmosphere. Methane is many times as effective as carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas. Another example: Weather is basically caused by temperature exchange with the ocean. Disrupt the ocean and you disrupt the weather.
What pisses me off about this is it will come to nothing. Some dumb ass excuse will be made an this technology will be shoved under the rug like everything else. How many such technologies that promise clean, renewable energy have been pushed aside?
Geothermal energy is a perfect example of this. Same old lines bullshit about being not mature enough, to expensive, or only available in certain areas. What a load of horse shit. Anyone with half a brain can tell that geothermal energy is a really available energy source. We are just to lazy a civilization to develop it.
I bet this will be shoved into the same hole as everything else an never be heard from again. Damn bastards.
Supporting World Peace Through Nuclear Pacification
I really, really doubt that this thing is practical. Organic Rankine Cycle Turbines (which are proposed) are very expensive to operate on dry land, as has been shown by research into solar thermal power in California. At least in those cases the efficiency was around 20%. The best they can hope for with OTEC is about 1.5% efficiency. Theoretically they could get 3.25% (Carnot efficiency), but experience with Organic Rankine Cycle Turbines has shown that 300C solar plants (Carnot Efficiency ~50%) only get around 20%, so one could expect to get about 1.25% efficiency out of their OTEC setup.
On top of this, all the equipment must be marine grade (ie., pricey). Power must be transferred to shore. It also must be a functioning ship with all the expense associated with that.
But what makes me most suspect is the claim of making fresh water. Ordinary Rankine Cycle Turbines do produce fresh water via distillation, but the Organic Rankine Cycle is a closed cycle and no fresh water is produced. The only condensation you'll get are hydrocarbons, which are recycled to create more vapour.
Why wait those three years when there are wave power generators made by a company called Pelamis waiting for full testing? They have alreadty supplied electricity to a grid in England This system seems much less likely to impact on any change in global sea temperatures. Plus, it is definitely not vaporware!
"Let us raise a standard to which the wise and honest can repair" - George Washington
Mmmm! Calamari for dinner tonight! And tomorrow night, and the night after that, then calamari sandwiches for lunch Sunday.
Jacques D'Arsonval (1851-1940) is far better known for designing the analog electrical meter movement (galvanometer) that bears his name. Nearly all DC voltmeters (and ammeters) you are likely to see (well, okay, largely--but not entirely--relegated to museums nowadays) are of the D'Arsonval type.
Rather than pick on a non-engineer you could have done some homework and answered the question yourself. But no, it's easier to doom say rather than actually solve the problem. Which is, in itself, the real problem.
Guess what? Everything involves risk. Nothing is perfectly safe. And we'll never, ever, know all the answers up front. So either do nothing and crawl into your cave... or deal with it.
At least these guys are TRYING to find a solution.
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
Okay, let's just pretend for a second that all of the "science" in this plan is on the up-and-up and that, if they were to share the plans, anybody in the world with the manufacturing capability could replicate their results.
Now that you're done laughing, let's look at the rest of it. It's taken 40+ years to get the tech to this stage why? If some random French guy nobody's ever heard of had it figured out 120 years ago, WTF have they been doing for the last 3 generations of wack jobs? Shouldn't they have it closer than 2-3 years down the road by now/
Finally, consider the last-mile issue. Okay, we've got a boat out in the middle of the ocean, with 1.21 hojillawatts of power stored up in it. Now what? Fire those diesel engines back up and head for shore? Big fucking extension cord? Pyramid power? Dolphins with battery packs on their backs?
Folks, you can't make this stuff up...it's pure comedy gold, straight from the pages of...PESN? Slow news decade in the tech world? Even the random Gizmodo updates from CES are better than this.
BFL
There's one thing computing teaches you, and that's that there's no point to remembering everything.
--Doug Copland
But it has not been proven that global warming is caused by people. The climate changes over time. Heating and cooling cycles have happened in the past and will continue to happen. And it appears that global warming is not limited to Earth. The polar caps on Mars are also melting. This would seem to point to a solar wide event not something here on Earth. Or is there an argument that the continued functioning of the Mars rovers is causing global warming on that planet?
We need to get used to the idea that things will change over time. We will have to adapt to the changing climate. Just the same way we have to prepare for more frequent hurricanes in this current storm cycle. It is what people have done all through history, adapt and change to survive in the environment. Only when we have moved off this planet and have self sustaining colonies in deep space will there be a relatively unchanging controlled environment. I only hope that we achive that before some catastrophic event causes a dramatc downward adjustment in population levels for our species.
He wasn't presenting himself as a non-engineer, he was presenting himself as someone too lazy to do some basic background analysis. In spite of this, he still advocated jumping on some bandwagon. The reason I didn't answer it myself is because I don't know the numbers. Specifically, their design is so completely full of mumbo-jumbo that it is impossible to come up with realistic numbers. Generally, I don't know how much energy these things can extract from water. So I don't know, and I don't tell. Finally, please point out where I say that thermal difference engines are bad. I didn't - I said that not doing any type of analysis is how bad ideas get implemented. Why? Because you have no idea whether you're dealing with a bad idea or not.
And we'll never, ever, know all the answers up front.
Absolutely. However, this is no reason to not even try to get answers. At least make an honest effort.
At least these guys are TRYING to find a solution.
Very true. This does not, however, give them a free ride to implement anything they come up with.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
(Note that the situation is a little different with the atmosphere, because the atmosphere has much less mass than the ocean and we've been mucking with a very sensitive feedback mechanism.)
Brackets contain world's first nanosig, highly magnified:[.]
1. No, it won't affect ocean currents. At all. That's a ludicrous suggestion. Global warming, and the melting of the polar ice caps, however, MAY VERY WELL cause the thermal gradient to change, possibly affecting the technology. Avery predicted in the early 1970s that global warming would cause major climate change and felt OTEC power was the only way to wean industrialized nations from their oil dependency.
2. Biofouling can be effectively and ecologically controlled and is not a problem.
3. Avery's project was canned by the Reagan administration, which felt nuclear energy was more valuable.
4. Why hasn't Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion caught on? The reason prototypes or venture capital have been slow is that the bottom line, the cost, has been prohibitively high. Shortly before he died (in 2004, at the age of 91), Avery concluded that the cost of oil was rising enough to make OTEC energy feasible.
5. Avery's vision was that OTEC plantships _would_ create methane and/or methanol; he even invented a very effective converter that could allow regular engines to run on NH4 (ammonia).
6. Direct solar power (through panels) remains prohibitively costly, relies on batteries (unecological to produce and dangerous to dispose of), and doesn't have the versatility of OTEC fuel, which can substitute for gasoline fuel or in place of thermo-electric or hydro-electric plants.
For anyone who thinks I'm pro-OTEC biased, you're right. It's an awesome technology that SHOULD have been adopted in the 1970s. Had the US had the foresight and intelligence to invest early on in the technology, we would not need to be addressing the global warming issues we are facing today. Economics, unfortunately, may be the bottom line, but OTEC energy remains one of the most spectacular alternative energy sources we have. Please at least read the book and get some actual facts before dismissing it. Whether Sea Solar Power International is going to fly or not, I've no idea, but OTEC energy is very much a renewable, valid, and environmentally safe energy alternate.
they're talking about exchanging a thundering lot of heat here.
Nope.
The Ocean is BIG. Really, really big. Spend some time with google earth, and try to get an idea of the scale of the planet.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Gosh, I am disappointed in the quality of nerds these days.
Tell me about it!
Every time there's any discussion of an alternative energy technology, you get hundreds of people posting to demonstrate their complete lack of understanding of scale.
Ocean thermal energy won't reverse the gulf stream. Windmills won't stop the wind. Bringing cold water to the surface won't cause an ice age.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Correct me if I've got my wires crossed, but I thought the sea temperature was about a constant 4 degrees all the way down, once you get below a certain distance of the surface. The reason being, that water colder than 4 degrees has lower density, therefore always floats upwards. That's why the ocean isn't frozen at great depths. It doesn't mean you couldn't tap that gradient anyway, but the depth required presumably wouldn't be all that much as long as you'd got at least as far as the 4 degree level.
I wonder if they could get this to work on the Great lake esp superior and Michigan? In the 2 cases, they are fairly deep and self regulating (southern MI is probably too shallow though).
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
There is a version of solar that does not use photo voltaic cells. Remember the Sim City 2K solar power plant? It looks a lot like that. An array of mirrors reflects light into a dome atop a tower. The dome contains a circulating supply of water that is heated up into steam and used to drive a turbine. The mirrors are automatically angled to reflect the sun (at pretty much any angle) into the dome.
e rmal_electric_power_plants
No really nasty chemicals involved, and it uses technology that has been available for a really long time. I'm not sure about efficiency.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power#Solar_th
See Concentrating solar power (CSP) plants.
Reading over it, it looks like it is not always water.
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
I was running through the thread trying to find this post.
Spot on, there have been debates on whether photovoltaic cells actually produce more energy in their life than it took to manufacture them. I don't know about that, since people wouldn't buy them if that was the case. But in any case, photovoltaic isn't as green as people seem to think.
Tharkban (It is a signature after all)
In this case its survival of the smartest. Maybe the birds around the Altimont Pass are particularly stupid and are doing the rest a favour by removing themselves from the gene pool. If I look at my front window, a quarter mile away is one of the biggest wind turbines I've ever seen. Can't say I've spotted a single bird carcass lying on the ground underneath it.
Personally I don't believe wind turbines kill birds. I call bullshit. The blades just don't turn fast enough. And anyway, birds very quickly get out of the way of fast moving objects. When was the last time you ran over a bird in the road with your car? Drive at 'em as fast as you like. They see you coming and by the time you get there, they've moved.
There are several different sites that report the numbers of birds killed by wind turbines in the US and around the world.
- http://web.syr.edu/~bpburtt/Birds/Aug08-04.htm
- http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2005-01-04-wi
n dmills-usat_x.htm
- DOE.gov
- http://www.njaudubon.org/conservation/Opinions/07
- 03.html
So we see numbers ranging from 1 to 37 birds/turbine/year. There are somewhere around 70,000 wind turbines installed around the world. So we are looking at something less than 3 million worldwide, and US estimates are typically in the tens of thousands, even by environmentalists.Disclaimer: I used to work for GE Energy, which makes wind turbines.
What do you mean? If course it's caused by people!
... er ... wait a minute ... no, there wasn't. So how could England possibly have had warm temperatures to support vinyards during the Middle Ages with no greenhouse emmissions unless -- **gasp** -- the earth did it by itself or by some outside stimuli!
.. er .. modded down becasue of it, but, hey, it's only karma.
Old English (okay, Anglo-Saxon) documents from the Middle Ages state that there used to be vinyards in southern England hundreds of years before Columbus sailed this way. A team from Harvard University also concluded a few years ago that, based on tree rings, ice cores, and so forth, in the period between roughly 850-1300 the global temperature was much warmer than it is today followed by what they refer to a "mini ice age" in roughly 1300, which killed the English ability to produce wine. England cannot effectively have vineyards today because of the much cooler temperatures, obviously. Of course, there was so much heavy industry and pollution back then
This is the problem with the modern environmental movement. They equate correlation with causation througout history based on less than 100 years of scientific data. While I will not simply and arrogantly discount all claims that we are having some impact, like a lot of anti-environmentalists do, I believe that nature is far more powerful and has more ways to adjust itself to us (or force us to adjust ourselves to it) than we give it credit for. I know that goes against the Slashdot groupthink and that I'll probably get censored
The Overrated mod is for reversing inappropriate, positive mods, not for voicing disagreement with a post.
"Research by raptor experts for the California Energy Commission (CEC) indicates that each year, Altamont Pass wind turbines kill an estimated 881 to 1,300 birds of prey"
/ bdes/altamont/altamont.html
That is not a large number at all, cars, buildings, pets, power lines, etc, etc kill WAY more than that. And the altamont pass is the single worst wind farm in north america for bird of prey deaths, because they were stupid and built it not only in the middle of a migratory path, but in the middle of the highest concentration of breeding golden eagles anywhere in the world, and with the blades positioned right at the typical altitude of those birds flight paths. This is exactly what caused the myth; old, improperly planned wind farms that haven't been fixed. Learn to find facts instead of just repeating nonsense you heard from whackjobs.
The fact that you think the tiny number of bird deaths produced by the worst wind farm on the continent is "substantial numbers" is just silly. And the fact that you pretend its indicative of modern, properly planned and constructed wind farms is just plain stupid. You can't say wind farms in general kill substantial numbers of birds just because a couple of bad wind farms were built.
The quote is from this page, there's more info there about what can be done to improve altamont specifically:
http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/swcbd/programs
"For god's sake, units of energy are defined by how much they heat water,"
:)
In SI Russia, the only acceptable unit of energy is the joule, which has nothing to with heating water.
Blame metrication!
I dropped a hot core just a few minutes ago. Unfortunately, it required more energy to create it than you could get out of it.
...then it's way too late.
You kind of make my point yet again. The climate will change over time. And there is not going to be a lot we can do about it.
We will have to adapt or die. Personally I think those that believe we have such a tremendous effect over the global climate are a little full of themselves. It makes them feel more powerful than they really are.
The article about using the ocean for generating power is very neat. I think they should build power plants of that type all over. More power and fresh water for all!
Fred Pohl wrote a good short story on the subject about twenty five years, something like "Queen of the Spinning Islands".
An analogous project mooted in Victoria (Australia, for the geographically challenged) is the construction of a "greenhouse tower" approximately a kilometre high with turbines at the top. The air inside becomes extraordinarily hot and is forced up where it spins turbines generating electricity. The air is replaced at the bottom of the tower. Its a similar design to a Brayton (?) closed turbine suggested by Gerald O'Neil for use in his space colony plans. In Queensland (Australia)the first electricity for a small town (ie Roma) was provided by using very hot bore water under pressure to spin a turbine. There are plenty of plans for digging large shafts underground and pumping a working fluid (eg ammonia) down, letting the subteranean heat boil it and drive a turbine at the surface.
How much energy will be consumed by the process of pumping cold water?
We're all forgetting about one massize cache of energy on our planet - American flab. Think of all the energy put into growing and/or producing the food that Americans have eaten to excess. If all (able-bodied) Americans were required to spend an hour or two a day on a power-generating bike, we could use up our "stored energy" [cough] and have a renewable, "green" power supply! Two birds with one stone. Let's face it - our calorie intake couldn't be any higher, even if we DID exercize a lot.
The good news: This will not be wrecking ocean micro-climates anytime soon. The bad news: This idea, while interesting at first glance, is at best unfounded optimism, and at worst a scam. And I'm betting on the latter, at the risk of getting slapped with libel charges. While it is true that this thermal gradient is large enough in theory to drive a heat engine of the type described, this will not come to fruition. Saying that this thermal gradient is large enough in theory is no praise at all--any thermal gradient can drive a heat engine. Whether it *may* be practical to do so can be estimated via the Carnot efficiency--a measure of the amount of energy that can be extracted in an ideal scenario for a given heat engine. "Ideal" is not used lightly, here. In this context, it means no frictional losses, no unintended heat transfer (perfectly insulated), perfect pumps, etc. Please note that SSPI's claims that they are using "advanced turbines and heat exchangers optimized for the duty" is not relavant. The Carnot efficiency of this engine is less than 8%. This is enforced purely by the small temperature difference with which they are working. Once real world factors are accounted for, like heat loss through the wall of a mile-long pipe, fluid friction in said mile-long pipe, pump losses, this stands precisely a snowball's chance in hell of being a net energy provider. Note that I'm not trying to be a Luddite crank about this--it simply is not feasible, no matter what "models" have been concocted.
http://www.toronto.ca/water/deep_lake/
Deep Lake Water Cooling project
Thought Toronto was already cool? Well, we're even cooler these days owing to an innovative project.
Enwave District Energy Limited, in partnership with the City of Toronto, has developed an alternative cooling system that uses the cool energy in cold water to air condition high-rise buildings in downtown Toronto. Enwave's innovative system is great for the environment. It reduces energy consumption by up to 75%, thus reducing carbon dioxide emissions.
"...should be ready to build their first full prototype 2-3 years from now"
Ok, so someone thought of this back in 1800's by some French dude with no regards to the impact on environment or the ocean ecology. Now in year 2006, 3rd generation spawns off the old idea as alternative energy source?
Do I hear "Steam Power"?
I never welcomed back the 70's, and hell I will welcome some crazy nut job idea involving plumbing the ocean's gradient. I rather drill a hole into Earth's core in a middle of the Ocean so that I can boil my egg.
"Don't let fools fool you. They are the clever ones."
In the last five years, my wife has accidentally hit three birds. All in a normal city road environment. I have begun to tease her by calling her 'Shari BirdSlayer'. Of course, she is the only person I have ever met that successfully hit a bird, and I have a couple of friends that went through phases where they were aiming.
Solar power based in far orbital farms or in lagrange points would not affect the Earth directly (except for maybe increasing the energy being pumped into it.)
Japan is seriously looking into this, and a space elevator makes this fairly feasible. Lowering manufacturing costs on solar panels helps too.
And of course, it gets us off this single fragile ecosystem and into a larger arena.
No! It's a *SIG*. Keep the Special Interest Groups away! (Con joke!)
Not only can this be spread out, it must be spread out. Haven't RTFA, but from what I know about OTEC it's generally held that 400MW or so ought to be the standard commercial sized plant. You'd need thousands of plantships spread all over the tropical oceans for the US alone.
And the brethren went away edified.
The number of birds dying because of wind power turbines is miniscule compared to the estimated 1 billion that die crashing into glass windows.
In particular, the floating platform must be carefully designed and entails much of the expense of the plant. This company appears to want to adapt something like a supertanker hull. If they do that, all I can say is that they'd better have a good, quick, cheap way of replacing their cold water pipe. (Maintaining the integrity of the cold water pipe is a major technical challenge in OTEC.) Such a platform simply isn't stable enough.
100MW extremely small for a commercial plant. Unless they have a much more inexpensive design overall than the textbook standard -- they might, but the textbook standard is extremely thorough -- they cannot make money with ships that size. It's difficult to turn a profit on a 400MW plant for that matter.
Furthermore, if it generates fresh water as a byproduct then it must be Open Cycle OTEC, which is rather less efficient than Closed Cycle. Open Cycle equipment is extremely bulky and so has been considered unsuitable for shipboard use: it has been limited to land-based plants. The animated graphic in the article illustrates Closed Cycle, so that must be what they're building. It will not produce a fresh water byproduct.
Another obstacle to OTEC is that where it works well is mostly not where the energy is needed. That's why it must first be economically feasable to operate on a hydrogen economy or some such. (In fact, OTEC is about the ideal energy source for producing hydrogen, which can be done onboard and then stored and shipped. Hydrogen being what it is, ammonia production might be a better choice though.) These folks still want to transmit energy to the shore via undersea cables. Certainly tropical islands with limited energy resources can use a nearby OTEC plant -- but they can't afford one, which is why this hasn't been done yet. And surely these people do not intend to string electric transmission lines clear across the Pacific. (Plantships work best when "grazing" anyway, and for that they must be untethered.)
Don'g get me wrong: I'm very enthusiastic about OTEC in general and I think it will be an important energy source someday. But in this case.... Perhaps the article is omitting some key details, but as presented the plan sounds half-baked.
And the brethren went away edified.
I just finished reading a short story by Arthur C Clarke about this titled The Shining Ones written back in 1962. He had them testing it out in 1974.
Fish, not birds.
Unless you count penguins and other diving birds getting decapitated underwater by the facility.
Yet again, I am reminded of Marshall Savages thought-provoking work, Colonizing the Galaxy in Eight Easy Steps. His belief is that the use of OTECs will relieve the world's energy problems, in addition to providing power for floating sea colonies, thus relieving population density. Furthering his premise, if I recall, the warm water will lead to an abundance of blue-green algae, which can be processed and used as a food source. These things, interestingly enough, are only a stop-gap until we can begin to expand life to places outside of this current biosphere.
Okay, maybe a tad off-topic, but I certainly find it fascinating.
Yet again, I am reminded of Marshall Savage's thought-provoking work, Colonizing the Galaxy in Eight Easy Steps. His belief is that the use of OTECs will relieve the world's energy problems, in addition to providing power for floating sea colonies, thus relieving population density. Furthering his premise, if I recall, the warm water will lead to an abundance of blue-green algae, which can be processed and used as a food source. These things, interestingly enough, are only a stop-gap until we can begin to expand life to places outside of this current biosphere.
Okay, maybe a tad off-topic, but I certainly find it fascinating.
sun, it does, once upon a time.
How do you end up heating water while creating power? I would imagine that a 100% ideal perfect etc. Carnot engine or something similar would at best convert heat into work, therefore it would be more interesting to look at the amount of heat extracted from the hot water. Or am I totally wrong here?
It would seem prudent to open a new slashdot section for new developments on the energy front, instead of posting it under "hardware" etc... This kind of stuff is especially interesting
*No, this is _NOT_ a troll/flamebait, I'm simply making a suggestion*
Commodore64_love: I don't comprehend people who're so frightened of death that they'll bankrupt themselves to stay alive
This is just complete nonsense. Yet another of example of how any weather whatsoever is taken as proof of impending disaster due to global warming in a display of backwards pseudoscience that would embarrass a creationist. We've had a few warm winters (which are supposed to prove disastrous global warming), and now we're having *one* *average* winter (which is supposed to prove that the gulf stream has stopped). The "climatologists" who get the headlines these days are their field's equivalents of David Warwick, ludicrous publicity seekers who will say anything for a few lines of print.
What about Fusion Power. Its been proven to work but takes a lot of science to make it viable. Imagine, Nuclear power without any nuclear waste! Or, what about Large Scale Hydrogen Fuel Cell power plants that do the same thing as small fuel cells but on a vastly larger scale.
Let us not forget DarkLight Industries, which appeared here at Slashdot at one time, which is indeed generating power using their own technology. OTEC is based around real, hard science, so I don't think this project is a hoax or a scam at all. Its likely that it hasn't gone commercial yet due to the cost of the technology which is now low enough to make it practical.
Michael "TheZorch" Haney
thezorch@gmail.com
http://thezorch.googlepages.com/home
"By moving water against the normal gradient, you will warm up water that's supposed to be cold, and cool off water that's supposed to be warm."
What do you mean "supposed to be"? Why is the assumption by greenies always that the current state is the correct one, and that any changes are detrimental?
How pathetic are you that you follow me from topic to topic and waste all your mod points at once modding me down?
Considerably more interesting OTEC news is that according to The Yomiuri Shimbun, the island of Okinotorishima will be subject to a joint reserach project by the National Fisheries University, an independent administrative agency and Saga University to assess whether the island is suitable for an OTEC installation. The project is supposed to start the 10 January 2006 and will involve about 20 people. The team will collect data about temperatures in different layers of water as deep as 1,000 meters, the quality of water, sea floor topography and currents. A report will be compiled by March. Japan is at odds with China over the establishment of exclusive economic zones (EEZ) around the atoll--which is about 11 kilometers in circumference--under the U.N. Convention of the Law of Sea.
Akvo.org - the open source for water and sanitation
"All power generating facilities are going to cause environmental damage"
Environmental changes. You can't just assume that those changes are "damage".
How pathetic are you that you follow me from topic to topic and waste all your mod points at once modding me down?
The hot core is due to radioactive decay of granite into a molten core of geo-goo. While friction is certainly a property of interest within the vicous materials below the mantle, it's not in line with your above classifications.
While current planet theory involves a rotating iron core, quite impressive local magnetic fields play havoc with the already poorly defined theory to a point I would not feel comfortable in believing it be a major contribution to geothermal heat. Of course, it would be equally correct for one to believe the complete opposite, mate - we don't know!
Cheers!
-Lewis
Big fucking extension cord?
Yes. I fail to see the problem with a hermetically sealed transformer station (or several, for redundancy) sitting next to this thing, with insulated high-power lines (also redundant) heading to shore. Boost the voltage really high and you've got less loss to resistance.
It would be interesting to see if anything gets inducted by all the juice though. Anyone out there know what happens when a power line lies under water? Does it crust with salt or metals?
"Sometimes, I think Trent just needs a cup of hot chocolate and a blankie." -Tori Amos on Nine Inch Nails
Any scheme that depends on *slight* variations in temperature is extremely unlikely to ever make more energy than it consumes, or takes to build and pay off over a reasonable lifetime.
The problems are many, and generally difficult, intractable, or impossible to overcome:
Supreme power is derived from a fusion of the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony. I mean if I went around claiming I was some renewable source of energy every time some watery tart threw a thermal gradient at me, they'd put me away.
Public use of any portable music system is a virtually guaranteed indicator of sociopathic tendencies. -- Zoso
But this submission is from the same Sterling D. Allan who gave us such other fine stories as Wilma the Capacitor and Particle Accelerator and often submits links to the Open Source Energy Network, a site that covers such reputable and proven technologies as cold fusion and extracting the zero point energy*. Are you suggesting that he may be a less than reliable source of information? I am shocked, simply shocked.
Why on Earth do they keep taking submissions from this guy? There are a lot of good articles about real science and technology out there, so there's no reason to waste time with BS.
* For those less familiar with quantum field theory, this means getting energy out of thin air. While things like the Casimir effect exist, then can't be used as a source of energy. This is a fact that essentially every physicist who uses quantum field theory in their research would agree on.
"You call it a new way of thinking; I call it regression to ignorance!" -- Operation Ivy
I live in northern norway, and the winters up here are getting really boring. Ten years ago there'd be metres of snow everywhere, now it's all melting away and we can slip on our bikinis and shorts and go have a goddamn picnic in the GREEN park. IT'S BORING GODDAMNIT! GIMME BLIZZARDS AND AVALACHES AND PERMAFROST! NOW!
So be my guest, place one of those beasts right in the middle of the mexican gulf. That ought to show that pesky gulf stream.
I have been reading / hearing about schemes such as these from since 1989 at least, all claiming to have either achieved or being on the verge of achieving success.
When in college I had used a Carnot engine to prove why it can't be done and if I am not mistaken the Carnot engine has not changed very much since then.
The Living Universe Foundation http://www.luf.org/index.html in the 1990's were tracking the work being conducted in the field of OTEC's. Some experiments were conducted off the coast of Cuba in the 1960's and they found it took more energy to run the pumps than were generated by the thermal gradients of the ocean.
The University of Hawaii (I believe) were trying some different techniques to achieve a positive energy efficiency, by using a closed-cycle system and alternative fluids such as ammonia. In 1979, they were able to achieve a positive efficiency, however the cost of the system and environmental/safety concerns of using ammonia proved the system to be more expensive than using fossil fuels.
I see where one poster complains about the laws of physics... but doesn't seem to pursue the gradient. My wife, a master diver, tells me that a typical gradient is 30F, though she's been on dives where it went from 80F to 40F in a space of a bodylength or two. It does all depend on location, of course.
However, even the median isn't small potatoes.
We also have plent of metal that will take ocean without rusting over long times. Further, the only metal that needs to actually be exposed is at the bottom and at the top, not in between.
mark
you would only need to segregate the waste for a few hundred years, not tens of thousands (the new design burns 95% of the fuel, the old designs only 1%)
I D=1&articleID=000D5560-D9B2-137C-99B283414B7F0000
no bomb: the design can't be modified to breed more dangerous elements useful in making bombs
design: limited to little pebbles, you would have to be an knowledgable ingenious sabatour given wide access to a facility to do any real damage, which woud be limited to the facility
like i said, educate yourself:
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa006&col
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Abundant power plus abundant fresh water has the potential to completely remake the countries in the equatorial region...
For 20 years. Then the population will have had time to exceed the newly available resources, and they'll be in the same condition they are now, except there will be 5x more of them. The third world doesn't need energy, medicine, water, or food. Not the long run, as no matter how great the supply much of it will be stolen or ruined, and the population will just grow to exceed the supply. The third world needs education and the rule of law. Until they are able to form governments which aren't just 'top strongman of the week' they will never be able to harness resources for the good of the populace, and if they DO form such a government that can enforce laws and reduce corruption they will have no need for all these things, as they will be able to produce them rather easily. They have plenty of resources and mineral wealth. They just need to keep strongmen from stealing it long enough to harness what they have.
That's what they used to say about the Great Lakes - had any seafood from there lately?
That's what they used to say about the land in the USA - been to Love Canal lately?
We don't need to overwhelm any given sector of the ecology - we need only have enough of an effect to trigger an event which could concievably have world-altering results.
Sorry, I misspoke. I was going to repost and said that I meant "cooling" rather than "heating", then I realized what was really happening was reducing a temperature gradient, so it's a little more complex. Still, gives a picture of the amount of energy involved in appropriate units.
What they *need* to do is kind of like what was described in "The Millennial Project" and build an ocean colony using accretion powered by OTECs. A big floating breakwater around a couple hundred square kilometers of artificial lagoon, in a nice quiet part of the ocean where the surface water is depleted of nutrients so there's no biosphere to speak of. Instead of using it for floating fish farms, cover it with floating solar collectors heating water to run steam turbines, with plenty of conveniently located cooling water. Located in international waters to minimize dealings with pointy headed bureaucrats. :)
How to get the energy to where it's needed is left as an exercise for the reader.
So even nukes give us solar energy!
If you know so much about this then fix it, that's what wikipedia is all about.
The ocean is very big, even compared to Los Angeles, the Great Lakes, and Love Canal.
Oh, and nobody ever got any seafood from a lake.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Fishes live near the surface of the ocean. Yes, it is possible to overfish in specific regions. It probably isn't possible to fish a species to extinction, however, even if we intended to do so. What happens in overfishing is the population of the fishes reduce to a point where it is no longer economically viable to fish. There are still plenty of fish out there, and skilled hunters (animals or human) can obtain as much fish as they really need or switch their diet. The only animals we really hurt by overfishing are ourselves because we effectively "starve" ourselves of that species of fish by making it uneconomical to continue fishing it.
It's interesting what is happening with the Pollack population in the Pacific. There are vast schools of these fish, and it is a fairly useful species. We have these huge ships that are packing facilities with a net attached scooping enormous quantities of these fish out of the ocean. However, through careful management, the Pollack fishing countries have agreed to only fish the amount that will allow the Pollack population to increase to its maximum sustainable population. This is where science, economics, and human ingenuity meet, and the result of truly free market action. Everybody who has an economic interest in the Pollack population has whole-heartedly signed on to ensure that there are going to be Pollack forever and ever.
However, what this energy source uses is not the surface water alone. It uses the mass of the ocean itself. In other words, you are limited to the scale of the volume or mass of the ocean, not the surface area. If we octuplued (8x) our output of energy, we would need to use 8x as much ocean mass to do so. This will affect only 4x as much surface area of the ocean.
The radical sect of Islam would either see you dead or "reverted" to Islam.
Unless you count CO2 as pollution, a modern coal based power plant is close to polution free. And rather efficient if you use a combined heat and electricity generation plant.
Really? Someone should tell the climate modellers.
It's not exactly a refutation is it? All you've said is that some people (mysteriously silent) would disagree. An argument from silence, in other words, a fallacy.
Of course it doesn't but that isn't the point. Since the climate is a chaotic system, everything from the flap of a butterfy's wing upwards could be significant in changing that climate.
In other words: a straw man.
The gulf stream is produced by the difference in temperature between tropics and the Arctic, and by the rotation of the Earth. Unless you're proposing that either will disappear soon, I'd suggest you'd better clue up on some rather basic science.
Always assuming that the rise in carbon dioxide has anything to do with the weak rise in temperatures over the past 100 years. In other words: post hoc ergo propter hoc is yet another fallacy
The thin vine is "carbon loading". Since at least 95% of the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is of natural origin, that loading could be seen as very much less significant than climate alarmists will admit. Until it starts to cool again, and then we'll wheel out the dreadful consequences of soot.
Tubby or not tubby. Fat is the question
Anybody else remember this article from Wired about John Piña Craven's work along a very similar line?t ml
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.06/craven.h
There are other limits on energy sources, and those are the EROEI and the total available. OTEC requires a lot of capital and has fairly small energy margins (works best when there's a good market for the byproducts of fresh water and cooling), so it might not be practical in many places. At least there's a lot of it, at least until until global warming eliminates the supply of deep cold water. (Half-smiley.)
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
Your willingness to debate is appreciated, but your claim that my argument is a straw man is a complete misreading of what I said. I said, and I stand by this, that a single press release, even from a reputable research like Battisti is not sufficient to "debunk" a (presently) accepted scientific theory.
As for westward intensification of a subtropical gyre, I'm well aware of how that works, and I made no suggestion that the subtropical gyre would be shut off. However, the heat content of the Gulf Stream and where that heat is delivered to the atmosphere can be vastly modified by changes in thermohaline circulation. Battisti is claiming, and as I said before, many other findings presently don't agree with him, that the heat delivered by the atmosphere is more important for Europe's climate. If that claim is corroborated, the paper can provide countervailing evidence that may eventually result in people changing their minds one way or another about a theory. I'm not in climate science the moment, so I have no real way of evaluating the merits of Battisti's claim. His work is welcome, and describes perfectly the now-discarded soot hypothesis that you and others keep going on about.
I also did not say that all temperature change is anthropogenic, and I don't claim that now. But the climate science community has accepted that anthropogenic carbon input has caused enough changes in the carbon content of the atmospheric (notwithstanding your claim about 95% natural carbon content, delta-carbon is what's under discussion) to provoke changes in climate that can accelerate the process of Earth's climate going from one metastable to another. And I might add, we have no idea how well our civilization will fare under this latter metatstable state, something that those paleoclimatology arguments tend to leave out. We are pushing a big lever of climate - you can deny that as long as you like, but the odds that the rest of the scientific community will come around to agreeing with you are getting longer by the minute.