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You can now subscribe to OTECnews via email. Ever day there is a new piece of news on OTECnews you can receive it in your email inbox. As if that wasn't enough, we have also added a most excellent search facility to the site. Thanks to Zezame for making the mailing list available to us.
posted by bjelkeman at 17:12

Depleted Atlantic fish stocks
The Economist reports on research performed by academics at the University of British Columbia which shows in detail how the fish stocks of the Northern Atlantic collapsed in the '80s and '90s. There are now stringent quotas for the collapsed fish stock, but they are not recovering. The top predators have been removed from the ocean. The ecosystem changed and there is no turning back the clock. They estimate that compared to a century ago the biomass of table fish has fallen by 85%. On top of that governments subsidise fishing in the North Atlantic to the tune of $2 billion-2.5 billion a year.

The fishing industry is still mainly in the "hunter gatherer" phase, with little regard for the consequences. The switch to a more controlled use of the resources will undoubtedly be a painful but neccessary process.
posted by bjelkeman at 20:35

The Tokyo Electric / Toshiba 100 kW OTEC pilot plant
A 100 kW OTEC pilot plant was constructed in the Republic of Nauru by Tokyo Electric Power Company and Toshiba Corporation. Operation of the OTEC began in October 1981 with the purpose of validating the design, and developing a 2.5 MW conceptual design using the operation data and construction experience. A storm eventually destroyed the cold water intake pipe, but operational data had already been obtained by then. Read more...

This is the third entry in our overview of current and past OTEC designs written by Phil Kopitske.
posted by bjelkeman at 17:10

Tuvalu pays the price for global warming
Countries disappearing due to raising sea levels seemed only to be part of future scenarios of the Global Business Network as featured in Wired Magazine. Not so. The future is here. Tuvalu will be evacuating its first citizens to New Zealand next year. The UK's Guardian has more information.
posted by bjelkeman at 14:40

Doubts about plankton as a carbon sink
New Scientist (16 January 2002) reports from the recent Ocean Sciences meeting in Hawaii about new computer simulations which Jorge Sarmiento and colleagues from Princeton University have performed with regards to using plankton blooming as a carbon sink to reduce CO₂ in the earths atmosphere. The model simulates how factors such as ocean chemistry and water circulation would affect the process if 160,000 km² of ocean was seeded with iron for a month. According to their simulation, after 100 years, only between 2 and 11 % of the extra carbon that was originally taken up by the plankton had actually been removed from the atmosphere. This would represent about 1 million tonnes of carbon, only 0.2 % of the carbon dioxide humankind produces in emissions every month. New Scientist article [subscription required]

This may show that, rather than feeding nutrient rich water from an OTEC installation to plankton for carbon sequestering, as some has suggested, actually using it for mariculture may be a far better use of this resource.
posted by bjelkeman at 17:13

Sea Solar Power 100 MW hybrid cycle OTEC plantship
The SSP 100 MW Plantship, which also produces 32 million gallons per day (120,000 m3) desalinated water, uses the same aluminum heat exchanger tube, vapor turbine, and deaeration air compressor technology as the SSP 10 MW shore based technology demonstration plant. Like the 10 MW OTEC, venture capital and construction partnerships are in place, with the first plantship cost estimated at USD $250 million, and the second through sixth units each estimated at USD $150 million. A desalination version of the plantship can produce 130 million gallons of fresh water per day and no net power. The plant uses its warm and cold water discharge streams for station keeping, and is able to build and deploy its own cold water "stockade" pipe once on station. Read more...

Phil Kopitske's second article about Sea Solar Power's OTEC designs.
posted by bjelkeman at 01:21

Sea Solar Power 10 MW Hybrid Cycle shore based OTEC
This OTEC, representing the first and possibly smallest commercially viable design is currently undergoing component level validation in York, Pennsylvania, prior to first installation. Venture capital and construction partnerships covering development and production of the first unit are already in place. Estimated cost in 2002 USD is $50,000,000, with projected production of 10 MW, and 3 million Gallons per day of fresh water. The first stage of the hybrid cycle is an open cycle, and the second stage is a closed cycle utilizing propylene. Read more...

This is the first article for OTECnews, written by Phil Kopitske. Phil be reviewing Sea Solar Power's current offering and also review other past and present OTEC designs over the coming months. The restaurant which can be seen on top of the artist rendering of the SSP 10 MW design I belive was suggested by Phil and I have heard it referred to by Robert Nicholson, Sea Solar Power's President, as Phil's Place.
posted by bjelkeman at 20:05

Fresh water from the sea
Saga University presents a new paper: Technology of Seawater Desalination Using Natural Energy using OTEC technology for the The 3rd World Water Forum.

I can not quite figure out if this is a new paper or not, it seems like webserver thinks the file was modified in August 2001. But I have not seen it before. However, it reads like a report written specifically for The 3rd World Water Forum.
posted by bjelkeman at 19:32

In the Pipeline
The January 2002 issue of NEHLA's newsletter Pipeline is out.

As usual, NEHLA Pipeline contains a whole host of insight into running a shorebased seawater pumping facility, and the lessons learned apply regardless of what you do with the water once it arrives from the deep. Worth reading.
posted by bjelkeman at 19:21