Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion

Monday, December 30, 2013

Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion

I have been trying to draw some diagrams to explain what I think we should be doing. I will scan these and post them here in the next day or so.
Meanwhile, here is a link to similar minded thinking displayed on Wikipedia.
Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion

A thing to remember is that none of this is rocket science!
This is all doable with technology already available and very well understood.
As the Wikipedia article shows, this is a 'base load' technology; it will just hum along in the background for ever and a day. This power source will keep insulated ice in a frozen, solid, less-dense-than-seawater, state for hundreds if not thousands of years.

Notice that the authors of the article are pointing to all the things I have mentioned in the description in the side panel at the right hand side of this blog page

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Ocean Cities summary

* The world's ocean fauna is heading for mass extinctions; all the corals may be gone by 2050, and "Fish and chips" will be off the menu by 2100 if we don't do something about it.
* acidification of the ocean and global warming are bringing this disaster about
* the underlying cause of both these changes is carbon dioxide produced by us humans burning coal and oil to power the technology of our civilisation [and burning forests and tropical grasslands]
* about one third of the extra carbon dioxide produced by humans ["anthropogenic" carbon overload] is absorbed by the ocean which is causing the acidification
* the most feasible cure for the ocean will be to grow billions of tonnes of extra seaweed as soon as possible and to continue doing so for as long as humans burn carbon based fuels [i.e. probably for ever]
*the most effective place to grow the extra seaweed [algae] will be in a belt of deep ocean along the equator and extending maybe five to eight degrees north and south - i.e. not in the hurricane zone
* nutriments for the algae will be obtained from ocean bottom water which, being very cold, will first be used as heat sink for the Stirling engines which will power the enterprise
* infrastructure and the communities directly involved in this large scale aquaculture will be housed on great rafts of insulated ice. These rafts will be thick enough and extensive enough to support populations and facilities both numerous, sufficiently complex, and diverse enough to be called Ocean Cities
* the various kinds of seaweeds so produced will be used to create chemicals currently derived from rock oil [e.g. "bio-diesel"], as well as food stuff for us, and for fish and for other animals
* none of this is rocket science and we can do it now

Why we really are a new species

As I see it, the advent of scientific method into human culture has irreversibly changed our species. The magnitude of the leap in human power [and responsibility] made possible by the acquisition of scientific method is as great as the leap which occurred when our ancestors acquired versatile grammar. That leap allowed the nesting of concepts in speech and thus the creation of stories which became the embodiment of accumulated knowledge.

The biggest leap before versatile grammar was not words in simple sentences but the acquisition of the use of fire.
[I think it was the use of fire which turned us into "naked apes". My simple reasoning is that great survival power was endowed upon the apes who could carry fire from place to place. This more than compensated for the deaths of the unlucky hundreds who died too soon to breed from infections in the wounds received when the hair on their legs and torsos went up in flames!]

Ocean Cities: on the ocean, on the equator - 海上城市 - Kotakota Samudera

Monday, December 30, 2013