Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion
February 25th, 2008This is a similar concept to what these Alaskans have done. If you have a big temperature differential, there’s potential for electricity generation (even if the overall conversion efficiency is very low).
Via: Telegraph:
The French inventor Georges Claude is largely forgotten today; if he is remembered at all, it is as the creator of the neon lamp. Yet one of his projects from the 1920s could resolve the global energy crisis – by harnessing the power of the oceans.
It may sound like science fiction, but Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) is an idea whose time has come. It is based on the work of Jacques-Arsène d’Arsonval, a 19th-century French physicist who thought of using the sea as a giant solar-energy collector.
The theory is very simple: OTEC extracts energy from the difference in temperature between the surface of the sea (up to 29C in the tropics) and the waters a kilometre down, which are typically a chilly 5C. This powers a “heat engine”: think of a refrigerator in reverse, in which a temperature difference creates electricity.
Claude’s efforts to develop a practical version of d’Arsonval’s concept had to be abandoned due to poor weather and a lack of funds.
But a modern equivalent would meet much of the world’s energy needs, without generating polluting clouds of carbon and sulphur dioxide. It could also produce vast quantities of desalinated water to be shipped to parched areas of the world such as Africa.
Learn More: Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion
