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OTEC and American Samoa
American Samoa's Power Authority (ASPA) is investigating windpower and OTEC [cached] to replace 13 million gallons of disel fuel per year, according to Radio New Zealand. Fonoti Perelini Perelini, chief operations officer of ASPA, says a consultant is submitting a report to the Department of the Interior and then to Congress for funding purposes for OTEC. He also says the consultant from the US believes OTEC holds the most potential of any another energy sources for American Samoa.
posted by bjelkeman at 14:06

More about the OTEC and deepwater success at NELHA
A reader in Hawaii tells us about an article in West Hawaii Today [cached] which describes the OCEES OTEC which will be built at NELHA. "We've been pursuing this for about eight years," said Steve Oney, executive vice president of OCEES. "We had a proposal in 2000 or 2001, and now we're in the process of commercializing this process."

An article in Mainichi Interactive [cached] tells us that "State exports of desalinated deep seawater soared 700 percent during the first three months of this year to $8.8 million, topping chocolate and coffee as Hawaii's biggest food-related export." Of course, it hasn't escaped these gentlemen that sustainably produced deep sea drinking water will be even more attractive to the customer. And an OTEC plant like the one OCEES will build can potentially produce a lot of fresh water from the sea.
posted by bjelkeman at 17:59

OCEES to build OTEC on Hawaii and also for the US military
According to the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, Ocean Engineering & Energy Systems (OCEES) announced on Friday 2 June that they will build a 1 MW OTEC power plant [cached] at the National Energy Laboratory Hawaii (NELHA). They also announced that they will build a 13 MW plant for the U.S. military forces at an undisclosed location. This is most likely the plant which has been discussed for Diego Garcia for some time now.
posted by bjelkeman at 16:14

OTEC under consideration
Amidst powercuts worthy of a developing country, Honolulu Advertiser reports that Hawaiian Electric Co. (HECO) is considering OTEC as part of the renewable energy mix for the islands [cached]. At the same time HECO is planning a new fossil fuel plant and and Jeff Mikulina, director of the Sierra Club's Hawai'i Chapter comments "A fossil fuel plant is economic folly when oil is over $70 a barrel," and the Sierra Club opposes the new power plant.

In Saipan, part of the Northern Mariana Islands, Saipan Tribune reports that the person in charge of the Commonwealth Utility Corp. Lt. Governor Tim Villagomez said " We are looking at wind energy, OTEC. We are looking at having renewable energy sources [cached]. We have sun, water, wind around us. There’s no reason why we should not try to tap these alternative energy sources.” Saipan apperently has a power supply crisis and are looking abroad for support, including from the Philippines.

In Taiwan The China Post reports that the Atomic Energy Council reserach laboratories are working on renewable energy technologies, including OTEC [cached], according to an official statement.
posted by bjelkeman at 15:26