Heat Energy from the Ocean

Do this:

Basic principle is that heat difference is used to condense a steam into a liquid then return it to be reheated.

Since heat differences in the ocean will be smaller, then one must substitute ammonia for water as the working fluid.

Examples Calculations:

• Surface Ocean temperature is 25 degrees C (298K)
• At 1000 meters depth the temperature is 5 degrees C (278K)

• Efficiency = 1 - 278/298 = .067 (6.7%)

• Power in cooling 1000 gallons of water per second by 2 degrees C is 32 MegaWatts (because water has such high heat capacity/storage)
• using 6.7% efficiency would then yield 2 Megawatts (1/500 typical coal-fired plant)
• But this is only for 1000 measly little gallons per second

OTEC Potential Sites:

• Florida, Puerto Rico, and Hawaii
• Indian Ocean
• Northeast Australia, Indonesia and Mexico

Above sites typically have thermal gradients higher then 22 degrees C

Energy extracted comes from the cooling of the warmer water --> this is transferred to the ammonia which does the actual work of turning the turbine (as ammonia steam)

Energy extracted proportional to the volume of water and the temperature it drops.

Principal energy loss is when the warmer water meets the cooler water in the condenser.

Total Capacity in the Gulf Coast Waters is many tens of GigaWatts

Next Page

________________________________________________________________

The Electronic Universe Project

e-mail: nuts@moo.uoregon.edu