Alternative Energy from the Ocean

Although it sounds like a vey modern scientific term - OTEC or Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion was first used by the Jacques D’Arsonval a French engineer back in 1881. However, at the time of this writing the Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii is home to the only operating experimental OTEC plant on the face of the earth. The expenditure needed to finance OTEC as a potential alternative energy source demands more serious investigation than ever before. With such an unlimited power source, you can never ask for cheaper costs since the processes involved driving OTEC are complex and serious funding is required. However, as it presently would need to be set up with our current technologies, OTEC plants would have the capacity for disrupting and perhaps damaging the local environment. Earth4energy is fast gaining popularity. Why is it so? With the electricity costs rising, average homeowners are becoming panicky.

Three types of Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion exist:

“Closed Cycle OTEC” uses a low-boiling point liquid such as, for example, propane to act as an intermediate fluid. The intermediate fluid is boiled after the warm sea water is pumped by the Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion plant into the reaction chamber. rotates large turbines. The vapor is then cooled down by putting in cold sea water.

When the ‘Open Cycle Ocean Thermal Energy’ system is used it is similar to it’s cousin the Closed Cycle except that no gas to form the intermediate liquid is present. With this method it is just the pressure of the sea that turns the turbines. Warm sea water found on the surface of the ocean is turned into a low-pressure vapor under the constraint of a vacuum. The low-pressure vapor is released in a focused area and it has the power to drive the turbine. To cool down the vapor and create desalinated water for human consumption, the deeper ocean’s cold waters are added to the vapor after it has generated sufficient electricity.

At the moment, the “Hybrid Cycle Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion” still remains just a theory. It seeks to describe the way that we could make maximum usage of the thermal energy of the ocean’s waters. There are actually two sub-theories to the theory of Hybrid Cycling. Of the theories involved, the first one discusses the use of a closed cycling which will then be the way to create the vacuum environment needed for open cycling to generate electricity. Using just one open cycle is not enough to create a massive amount of desalinated, potable water so the second component seeks to integrate two open cyclings that can produce twice as much as with just one.

Apart from generating electricity on demand, a closed cycle production plant can also be employed in the treatment of chemicals. Both the open cycling and close cycling kinds of the Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion plants can also be used to pump up cold deep sea water which can be utilized for refrigeration and air conditioning. Furthermore, during the moderation period when the sea water is surrounding the plant, the enclosed area can be used for mariculture and aquaculture projects such as fish farming. There is clearly quite an array of products and services that we could derive from this alternative energy source.

In Technology |