The news source for Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC)

What is OTEC?
More about OTEC
OTEC Library
Articles
About us

Home / News
Subscribe



Send us stories at editor@otecnews.org

Search OTEC News

Archives

Palau's government supports OTEC study
Marianas Variety reports that the island nation of Palau's government has passed a resolution to perform a feasibility study for OTEC for the island. A request for US$ 500,000 has supposedly been made to the United States Trade and Development Agency (USTDA) to support the study.

Edit: Thanks to Geoff Wilkie for pointing out that I misspelled Palau.
posted by bjelkeman at 10:00

Solar boosted OTEC
An interesting theoretical paper on solar boosted OTEC [PDF] systems by Noboru Yamada, Akira Hoshi and Yasuyuki Ikegami, the latter working at Institute of Ocean Energy of Saga University, Japan. (I wish IOE hadn't abandoned their English language site.)
posted by bjelkeman at 15:47

Auditors descend on NELHA
According to an article in West Hawaii Today the state auditors will resolve whether NELHA is overcharging for its deep water to the mariculture tenants or not. The rising costs have been an issue for some time and now it seems the issue is coming to a head.

I am sure that the issues are not easy to understand from afar. But to lay the blame at the door of NELHA for failure in making OTEC happen in Hawaii, like Syd Kraul, owner of Pacific Planktonics, seems to be doing in a statement: "I am of the opinion that the aquaculture companies at NELHA have provided financial support for a very costly group of government employees and kept NELHA alive despite their failure in their missions relating to energy" is in my opinion downright churlish or ignorant. The failure to make OTEC happen in the US lies firmly at the door of the Department of Energy and the U.S. government. (Of course, knowing how these things happen, he was probably miss-quoted.)
posted by bjelkeman at 23:05

Hawaii Energy Options - new blog
Doug Carlson writes a new blog on the energy situation in Hawaii. This could be interesting, as Hawaii has some of the best reasons in the world to become first with OTEC. They have the right environmental conditions, the expertise and a need. The question is do they have the political will to become big in green energy?
posted by bjelkeman at 22:45

The Power Of The Oceans, by Big Gav
Big Gav over at the Oil Drum's Oz/NZ section posted a nice overview of ocean energy. The post later got crossposted over at the Daily Kos, which gives it a bit bigger distribution.
posted by bjelkeman at 00:03

New website for Seasolar Power
Seasolar Power has a new website with background material on OTEC and information about the company.
posted by bjelkeman at 09:27

Palau Government want to do OTEC study
According to the Micronesian Newspaper Marinas Variety the Government of Palau has submitted a proposal to the US Trade and Development Agency to secure funding for an OTEC study. The budgeted amount for the study is said to be US$ 500,000. According to he article they would limit the implementation of the eventual OTEC plant to US companies, suggesting that either OCEES or Seasolar Power could get the work.
posted by bjelkeman at 09:17

NELHA Green Energy Zone web cast, 13 Feb. 2008
NELHA will hold a webcast about the Natural Energy Laboratory Hawaii Authority (NELHA) experiments in ocean thermal energy, aquaculture, and renewable energy development on the Island of Hawaii. Presenters include Ron Baird, who is the executive director of NELHA and Will Rolston who is the manager of the Hawaii Gateway Energy Center. Sign up beforehand at the above URL.
[edit] Opps, one day too late. Sorry. Well, you can download the PDF presentation from the link above.
posted by bjelkeman at 13:34