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US Navy signs $8 million OTEC deal with Lockheed Martin
Slightly old news is that Lockheed Martin has penned a deal with the US Navy in September 2009 to "develop critical OTEC system components and further mature its design for an OTEC pilot plant, an incremental step in developing large-scale utility plants. A key part of maturing the plant design includes developing an interface between the system’s cold water pipe and the platform". The deal is worth just over US$8 million.

Labels: lockheed martin, otec, US Navy

posted by Thomas Bjelkeman at 16:25

NY Times on OTEC and SWAC

The New York Times carries an article about OTEC, focusing on Lockheed Martin's work in Hawaii. There is also a blog piece on the potential for using seawater for air-conditioning (SWAC) in the same location. The piece has the normal sceptic questions: "“just how economical it can be.” and "“[SWAC] doesn't work for high-rises with individualized air-conditioning units,”

I would argue that SWAC indeed works for high-rises with individual aircon units. Why shouldn't it work in Honolulu when it works in Stockholm? You just have to get away from the fear of infrastructure. Most of Stockholm, Sweden, has district heating, and has installed a substantial district cooling network based on seawater as well. There are very few individual aircon units to be found in Stockholm, because people are not afraid of investing in infrastructure which makes sense. And SWAC makes a lot of sense. Stockholm isn't even that hot in the summer, in Hawaii it should be a no-brainer.

With regards to OTEC and price. OTEC is one of the few large scale renewable energy system which can provide base load independent of what the weather is like. Hawaii is in the perfect location for it, it has the engineering skill locally, it is part of the largest economy in the world. The question is: does it have the guts to free itself from oil?

Labels: lockheed martin, nelha, otec, swac

posted by Thomas Bjelkeman at 12:23

Lockheed Martin looking for OTEC technology in India?
According to the Indian newspaper The Mint, Lockheed Martin are looking to acquire OTEC technology from India. This has supposedly been leaked from a government official. This would supposedly be about deep pipe technology. One wonders if rumour is overplayed, considering that the most well respected company in the world, when it comes to deep seawater pipes is Makai Ocean Engineering, based in Hawaii. I would love to hear more about what you think at: thomas@otecnews.org

Labels: india, lockheed martin, otec

posted by Thomas Bjelkeman at 21:51

New Scientist on OTEC
New Scientist has a two page article on OTEC in the latest issue (19 Nov. 2008). The article mostly talks about issues related to the recent announcements that Lookheed will build a 10-20 MW OTEC in Hawaii, which we mentioned the other day.

Labels: hawaii, lockheed martin, new scientist, otec

posted by Thomas Bjelkeman at 19:11

Hawaii OTEC
Doug Carlsson at Hawaii Energy Options was the first of several people to highlight that the Hawaii governor announced that Taiwan Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) and the Lockheed Martin Corporation is going to build a 10 MW OTEC plant on Hawaii. What is interesting is that they are not announcing where, although one may presume it is at NELHA. Also it is going to be interesting to see how this announcement affects the smaller OTEC development companies, such as OCEES and Sea Solar Power, who have been holding the flame alive whilst OTEC was out in the oil induced cold.
Edit: An unconfirmed report mentions Oahu as the location for the OTEC plant.

Labels: hawaii, ITRI, lockheed martin, otec

posted by Thomas Bjelkeman at 09:34

New York Times writes about Lockheed Martin OTEC project
The NYT picked up on the Lockheed Martin press release about the grant from the US Department of Energy to "demonstrate a cold water pipe fabrication approach using modern fiberglass technology and recent low-cost composite material manufacturing methods at prototype and pilot plant scales". The Energy Daily also has some quotes from Lookheed Martin and indications that they are also working with Makai Ocean Engineering and others on this.

Labels: cold water pipe, lockheed martin, makai, otec

posted by Thomas Bjelkeman at 10:22