At present, the external costs of energy production and consumption are not considered in determining the charges to the user.  Considering all stages of generation, from initial fuel extraction to plant decommissioning, it has been determined that no energy technology is completely environmentally benign.  The additional costs associated with corrosion, health impacts, crop losses, radioactive waste, military expenditures, employment loss subsidies (tax credits and research funding for present technologies) have been estimated to range from 78 to 259 billion dollars per year.  Excluding costs associated with nuclear power, the range is equivalent to adding from $85 to $327 to a barrel of fuel oil, increasing the present cost by a factor of 4 to 16.  As a minimum, consider that the costs incurred by the military, in the USA alone, to safeguard oil supplies from overseas is at least $15 billion corresponding to adding $23 to a barrel of fuel - equivalent to doubling the present cost.  Accounting for externalities might eventually help the development and expand the applicability of OTEC, but in the interim the future of OTEC rests in the use of plantships housing closed (or hybrid) cycle plants transmitting the electricity (and desalinated water) to land via submarine power cables (and flexible pipelines).

Conventional power plants pollute the environment more than an OTEC plant would and, as long as the sun heats the oceans, the fuel for OTEC is unlimited and free.  However, it is futile to use these arguments to persuade the financial community to invest in a new technology until it has an operational record.  The next step in the development of OTEC is the installation and operation of a pre-commercial plant sized such that it can be scaled to 100 MW.


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