Thermal Energy Seas, an energy of unknown future!

[rescwood]

ETM = Thermal Energy of the Seas
Lots of interesting and serious info here:

http://www.clubdesargonautes.org/

Getting started: producing energy with a delta T of about twenty degrees, seawater and vacuum ...

http://www.clubdesargonautes.org/histoirestem/etmclaudetunisie.htm

Assessment of available resources:

http://www.clubdesargonautes.org/energie/potentiels.htm#etm

Potential impact:

http://www.clubdesargonautes.org/energie/etmupwellings.htm

If we manage to cool the oceans, we may be able to counter global warming ...

[Christophe]

Thank you for these different links! Very interesting technique and surely one of the most promising! Remains to solve the problem of transporting electricity ... or to move cities under the oceans (well we will come ...)

[rescwood]

They talk on the site of the argonauts to use synthetic fuels or hydrogen produced on site as energy carriers.

The ETM process also seems interesting to me to improve the energy efficiency of processes rejecting huge amounts of heat like nuclear power plants for example

[Pierre-Yves]

indeed, beyond the ETM, it is the recovery of all the heat sources characterized by a low delta T between hot source and cold source.

For those who are not allergic to English, here is another interesting link on ETM (Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion, in English):

http://www.otecnews.org/articles/vega/0 ... rview.html

[rescwood]

Found on the pages of Pierre-Yves' link

A 100 MW-net plantship can be configured to yield (by electrolysis) 1300 kg per hour of liquid hydrogen. Unfortunately, the production cost of liquid hydrogen delivered to the harbor would be equivalent to a $ 250 barrel-of-crude-oil (approximately 10 times present cost). The situation is similar for the other energy carriers considered in the literature. Presently, the only energy carrier that is cost-effective for OTEC energy is the submarine power cable. This situation might be different if the external costs of energy production and consumption are accounted for.

This dates from 1999, the cost of producing the hydrogen produced in an ETM plant by electrolysis and delivered to a port would be equivalent to a barrel of oil at $ 250. From a factor of 10 in 1999, today we have grown to ~ 2-3! The costs of producing and transporting other energy carriers would be similar. Conclusion of the time: the only profitable solution under these conditions, the transport of electricity produced by cable.

[Christophe]

I had already made the remark previously I no longer know in what subject: pkoi focus on this damn hydrogen given the disadvantages it generates?

Why not use it to make a liquid synthetic fuel much more easily transportable based on biomass (plankton? Microalgae?) Or better nitrogen in the air !! Finally, the researchers have surely already studied this solution ...

N2H2 I think it's not a bad fuel

[Remundo]

Hello everybody

In fact, for the storage of hydrogen, nature has done something very simple ...

She puts them on a carbon chain! Smart isn't it?

And that allows us to burn it all with the oxygen in the air and to have liquid fuels that are easy to transport and transfer ...

So we can have fun storing produce H2 at 400 Bar ... Did you know that the BMW hydrogen 7 loses its fullness after a few weeks NONUSE ? H2 is so small and pressurized that it easily diffuses through any metallic wall or not.

It is also extremely dangerous in the open air, take a look at it:
http://ww3.ac-poitiers.fr/sc_phys/cyber ... /NaH2O.htm
and video
http://ww3.ac-poitiers.fr/sc_phys/cyber ... /NaH2O.mpg

I remind you that H2 is basically 2 protons and a few neutrons ... almost always gaseous (except at - 250 ° C or several hundred bars ...) Nothing is smaller and difficult to handle

If we really want to make H2 so as not to have CO2 after combustion, I think it must be produced in situ from the application.

For thermal energy in the seas, this is interesting because it is renewable, but the installations are disproportionate, expensive and the DeltaTs are too low to have good thermomechanical efficiency.

Better to focus on thermodynamic solar.

@ Soon !

[Pierre-Yves]

The interest that I see at ETM is the possibility of exploiting energy sources with a low delta T, as there are so many. That said, I am not a fan of the ETM itself and I adhere enough to the analysis given in this excellent article:

http://e-mecatronique.bretagne.ens-cach ... s_2006.pdf

An experience which seems much more promising to me is the following:

http://www.centrehelios.org/fr/publicat ... v5n11.html

[Remundo]

Yes, it's interesting indeed,

any renewable source must be exploited.

But still, for mass energy, it is really thermodynamic solar that is relevant.

@+

[rescwood]

But still, for mass energy, it is really thermodynamic solar that is relevant.

What do you call thermodynamic solar?