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Chinese Developer To Build Ocean-Water Thermal Energy System
the_newsbeagle writes "When you've got a wacky high-tech idea that will cost a lot of money, head to China. Lockheed Martin is the latest company to heed this advice. For decades, Lockheed has investigated ocean thermal energy conversion, in which the temperature difference between warm surface water and cold deep water is leveraged to produce power. Just a few years ago, the company was working with the Navy and discussing a possible OTEC pilot project in Hawaii's Pearl Harbor. That idea has since been scrapped, and Lockheed is now partnering with a Chinese resort developer to build the 10-MW pilot plant off the coast of southern China. Lockheed hasn't disclosed the cost of building this plant, but outside experts say it might cost more than $300 million."
We have no idea what this is going to do to the local ecology, n'mind to the bigger picture. We do know that the oceans have a bit of a role in the climate, but we don't know very much at all about the what & how--and we know this too. So this is pretty much irresponsible.
The most commonly used heat cycle for OTEC is the Rankine cycle using a low-pressure turbine. Systems may be either closed-cycle or open-cycle.
-- wikipedia
considering the parties involved, it's obvious this is going to be a completely closed-cycle system. i'll wait until someone make and open-cycle version for Linux.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
Why are they letting a programmer do civil engineering?
Table-ized A.I.
Please hurry!
The one in Okinawa Japan was on TV the other day generating 12 KW. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_thermal_energy_conversion#Japan
If someone could supply cold ocean water in large quantities at the surface, it could significantly cut the cost of air conditioning for large hotels and office buildings.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
I believe there's a couple of buildings in Toronto that have been saving energy this way for years.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
I would rather black people get funding for housing, than spend money on expensive OPEC. Various renewable energy sources have been looked at since the 70s. Wind is winning. Solar is not doing badly. Geothermal might be of use for space heating. Tidal, wave, OPEC have lost. Let the Chinese give OPEC a try.
Raise your hand if you think that equalizing the surface and deep ocean temperatures is a good thing to do for this planet?
What's so amazing is that they're equalizing the temperature of the entire 1.3 billion cubic kilometers of ocean water, and only generating 10MW from it! I guess it takes most of the power output of this heat pump to destroy the planet.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
I visited the energy park on the west side of the big island of Hawaii eight years ago or so. It's quite an interesting place. They have large ~3 foot plastic pipes going down deep into the ocean. They pull up cool water from various depths. They have tenants at the facility trying to make use of that cool water. I remember a solar power plant, and an algae bio-fuel facility (I guess algae likes that kind of water). They also had a company that took the cold salt water, pulled the salt out, and bottled it for very expensive drinking water (it's supposed to be very pure).
Here are the two problems with the demonstration OTEC plant they had decommissioned that I remember the docent telling me about:
1. The salt water just eats everything.
2. The low temperature difference between the deep water and the surface means that you have to build a BIG machine to get net energy out.
I wish them luck. This is not a slam dunk.
OMG - it's not just the windmills but the trees, mountains, and every fucking building on the planet that does this, so are we all doomed?
Now you cannot possibly be so stupid as to not have picked this up so what is you motivation in writing such bullshit to trick the gullible? Is it a prank or do you just feel like you want to trick kids as a bit of propaganda to help out the oil industry? As someone in the oil and coal industries I can say that we're doing quite well without your "help", so kindly fuck off because you are making us all look bad.
The wind turbine syndrome shit is all a transparent con by some idiots that are annoyed at windmills ruining their view. The instant cure for wind turbine syndrome appears to be getting some sort of financial benefit from windmills.
And you know, when there was only 1 automobile in california, there was no problem with air pollution.
And the whole plastic sea thing in the pacific didn't even really become noticeable until 20 years after we had plastic.
12kw today, 120kw a few years from now, 1200mw in 20 years...
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Agree that flying to the moon was an inspiration to millions of 10yo boys like me who watched it live, it' undoubtedly THE most significant histrorical event in my lifetime (so far). But lets not forget it was funded for it's warboner appeal, not it's nerd appeal. Also a modern jet fighter is a testimony to mankind's ingenuity, not his wisdom.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Raise your hand if you think that equalizing the surface and deep ocean temperatures is a good thing to do for this planet?
Now use that hand to pull your head out of your arse. It's anti-science cocksuckers like you that infested Greenpeace and gave environmentalism a bad reputation, fuck off and join the religious nutters, you'll fit right in.
Arthur C. Clarke already warned us the deep-ocean dwellers might not take kindly to dumping heat into their environment.
Why, you're right! That's horrible! We must undertake a massive engineering project right now to shut down all convection in the oceans! I never knew what a danger the gulf stream was until you pointed it out.
Seriously, call your travel agent and see if they can get you onto the same continent as a clue.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
So, please tell me, what brings a clueless luddite with no conception of scale and a tenuous grasp on reality to a tech site? I'd suggest turning of the computer for a few minutes and go outside or at least look out a window at reality out there for a little while before coming back. Your "in 20 years 1200MW" really puts it in perspective, even that much energy loss from such a massive system is a drop in the ocean. There's plenty of coal fired power stations bigger than that, and just about every purely civilian nuclear power station operating today is bigger than that.
Also guess what - hot water rises.
One more thing to put things in perspective, at 10MW this plant is generating half the power that you can get from a 1950s surplus fighter jet engine hooked up to a generator (Avon jet engine). If you don't know as much about such things as crystal pyramid power or naturopathic bullshit fair enough, but expect people to make fun of you when you've got out of your depth and spout the "things man was not meant to know" stuff.
I guess the idea is that Lockheed builds a prototype plant and the elite resort gets a novel power source to add to its cachet. There's probably public funding in there somewhere. Other Peoples' Money goes down better and aids digestion.
Well, according to your Wikipedia link, the station brings in around $8m a year in gross revenue. Even if half of that gets eaten up by operational costs, the project will pay for itself in ten years. Granted, you could probably get a faster ROI by putting in a gas turbine, but this solar setup is not such a bad investment.
As for the OTEC thing in China, yeah $300m is rather pricey.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it. --AC
"Also a modern jet fighter is a testimony to mankind's ingenuity, not his wisdom."
Yes, including because the same technologies (including the surrounding bureaucracy) if organized differently could likely relieve the resource-related conflict that the jet fighter was invented to solve in other ways. Thus my sig and essay on the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity. Or, as Isaac Asimov had one politician character (Salvor Hardin) say in "Foundation" series, "Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent". Or Einstein's point on the need to change our way of thinking to adapt to the change from high technology (unleashing the atom especially, but it applies generally). Or Bucky Fuller's words about how whether it will be utopia or oblivion will be a touch-and-go relay race to the very end.
The fact that the US missions to the moon started by President Kennedy were, as you say, funded mainly to prove a military point about ICBMs by the US is sadly a big part of why significant further work on space settlement never happened...
From: http://whitehousetapes.net/clip/john-kennedy-james-webb-robert-seamans-hugh-dryden-jerome-wiesner-fly-me-moon
"President Kennedy: So obviously you wouldn't put it on that priority except for the defense implication..."
Although I guess one could argue some clever engineers took advantage of the military-oriented political dynamic to do something more worthwhile for humanity? While playing catch-up to the Russians who stated explicitely they wanted to build space settlements?
Still, as US$30 a watt, OTEC is going to have trouble competing with less than US$1 a watt solar panels (and falling). Sounds like OTEC's big economic benefit may be improving fishing harvests.
I was under 10 when the moon landings happened, so maybe just a little too young to understand the significance of the initial landing. Somehow, I can't say that affected me as much as seeing sci-fi movies like "Silent Running" though, or various other TV programs (Space 1999, Thunderbirds, Star Trek) even though some of those were no doubt inspired by the spirit of the times. James P. Hogan's scifi novels set in space habitats or huge space ships were a huge inspiration as well (like voyage from yesteryear, two faces of tomorrow).
These days, as the USA descends into what seems to be self-destructive madness as it becomes an obese unhealthy unequal fearful addicted surveillance state, putting cameras in living rooms instead of on the Moon, profiling potential troublemakers to imprison them instead of help them be contributing engineers or whatever, and letting its physical, moral, health, and political infrastructure decay for ideological neoconservative/neoliberal reasons, these days it's kind of hard to remember there was a time that both young kids and politicians in USA seriously aspired to walk on other planets whatever the political justification... It's even hard to remember there was a time when half of Congress passed something like a "basic income" law under Nixon (passed the House, but failed in the Senate in part because some thought it not big enough), or even just that we aspired politically to have bridges and water mains and roads everywhere that were in good shape.
More on China vs. the USA:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/09/opinion/09friedman.html?_r=0
"Watching both the health care and climate/energy debates in Congress, it is hard not to draw the following conclusion: There is only one thing worse than one-party autocracy, and that is one-party democracy, which is what we have in America today."
Still, to be optimistic, the world is waking up globally, including via the internet, and it is overall becoming wealthier and healthier (see Hans Rosling), so the future is still in play even as the USA be
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
Seems like Japan would be the better place for and Ocean-Water Thermal Energy System.
Are you an idiot or an asshole? It is well known that wind turbines cause local disturbances which have no discernible effect on larger weather systems, and some quick research will turn this fact up.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
While I'm not sure how much energy is represented by the ocean temperature differentials in question (As efficient per square meter as a solar panel?), I'm pretty sure maintenance costs will be prohibitive. The ocean is famous for chewing up what we throw at it. Anything made of metal is probably a significant maintenance cost. Not sure it's possible to do a cement structure of sufficient size, in mid ocean, in deep water.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
Hawaii already tried and failed at OTEC back in the late 70's. The difference between surface and deep water temperature determines the max theoretical efficiency and it turned out not to be high enough to make the process work given real-world heat losses.
After the OTEC project shut down, the state had a deep-water pipe off the Kona coast that they were wondering what to do with. Fortunately for Hawaii, at the same time the California Coastal Commission was making life miserable for an abalone farmer in California. He was trying to leverage some aquaculture research done at a marine lab near Monterey by seeking permission to sink a pipe into Monterey Canyon and pull up cold water to water his kelp which he would feed to the abalone. The Coastal Commission denied his request and so he picked up and moved to Hawaii where he started an abalone farm using the failed OTEC infrastructure.
The Commission's stupidity cost California taxes on a lucrative business as well a few jobs - a practice the state continues to this day.
The farm has done very well over the years. This species of kelp when doused with the deep cold water grows on the order of a foot a day. The farm harvests the kelp and chops it into little bits which are fed to baby abalone. The abs are harvested when they're a couple of inches across (way below legal limit if the abs were wild) and are shipped to Japan as an ultra-premium food.
Look- wind was supposed to be "free" power as well and there is already talk of it altering weather patterns and regional wind patterns. Which makes sense when you are extracting energy from the wind.
Other power plants (like the ones you mention) that use water for cooling are already experiencing difficulties because the water is warmer than was projected or lower than projected or the local wildlife is blooming and clogging the plant's water intake.
Nothing is free.
Always look for the unintended consequences.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/9234715/Wind-farms-can-cause-climate-change-finds-new-study.html
"Usually at night the air closer to the ground becomes colder when the sun goes down and the earth cools.
But on huge wind farms the motion of the turbines mixes the air higher in the atmosphere that is warmer, pushing up the overall temperature.
Satellite data over a large area in Texas, that is now covered by four of the world's largest wind farms, found that over a decade the local temperature went up by almost 1C as more turbines are built.
This could have long term effects on wildlife living in the immediate areas of larger wind farms. "
You were saying?
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Why is this modded down? Chauvinistic Americans don't like hearing the truth that their country is heading down by many important markers?
Is the USA a beacon of freedom, a model for other Nations? Not so much. It spies on its own citizens, does border searches 100 miles from the nearest border, and has incarcerated a larger percentage of its population than any other country on the earth.
Is the USA the economic engine of the world. Yes, it still is, but if it keeps feeding wall street at the expense of main street it'll just be investing in investing. Short term investment is not improving the long term prospects of the USA economy.
Is the "American Dream" alive? Economic mobility in the USA is one half of that in Canada, and one third of Denmark's. Pro-business laws, virtually no real labour protection laws, and a flimsy social safety net all contribute to the USA now not being the best country to get ahead in.
You get the idea. Other countries are catching up. If the USA wants to be a model for other countries it is going to have to reform itself - something that is hard to when it's political suicide to even suggest that the USA is any other than "exceptional".
Anarchists never rule
Yes, from the "windmills make me sick until someone gives me money or improves my property value" crowd. Sorry to point this out, but once again buildings, trees, land clearing etc have equivalent impact.
The other is unrelated due to intensity and SCALE, that word mentioned above. Very large temperature differences (close to boiling to ambient) and a lot of volume are a bit different to a 10C difference or so and not much volume.
Had millions of it can never be done type.
In geological time terms, a cold ocean floor is _very_ recent - concurrent with the onset of ice ages.