Taiwan officially investigates OTEC
Published February 18, 2005 | 
The Taiwan Journal published by the Taiwan government says in an article [cached] that in January the Council for Economic Planning and Development set up a task force promoting R&D in deep-sea water industries, including OTEC. Taitung County is promoting establishing a deep-sea water science park, like NELHA, on Hawaii
Could ‘Liquid Metal’ technologies transform the economics of OTEC components?
Published October 16, 2003 | ‘Liquid Metal’ is a revolutionary new metallic alloy that offers properties tailored to the end application such as seawater corrosion resistance, thermal conductivity and hardness. Most interestingly it can be shaped and moulded like conventional plastics using lower temperature methods while still offering metallic properties. Titanium is the current metal of choice for -for example- the plate heat exchangers for an OTEC, however the metal has high costs associated with shaping the end product. More… Continue reading
Reduced drag on pipes
Published October 1, 2002 | In their paper “Passive control of VIV with drag reduction. J. Fluids and Struct. 15, pp 597-605, 2001″ J.C.Owen, P.W.Bearman and A.A.Szewczyk, talk about drag reductions of between 25% and 47% on particularly shaped pipes (as opposed to straight cylinder shaped pipes). Apparently this has now also been confirmed by independent commercial research. We have mentioned this before with a reference to their European patents.
Does the added engineering costs for producing a pipe in… Continue reading
OTEC based power for ocean nitrogen fertilisation
Published September 8, 2002 | Engineering students from The University of Sydney have devised a scheme to produce reactive nitrogen for fertilization of the ocean from an OTEC plant. They claim that “Each floating structure could stimulate the growth of 370,000 tonnes of sardines a year, enough protein for three million people, at a cost of $US400 a tonne, or eight cents per person per day.” The University of Sydney News has a recent article about it and also one from January.
Burn billions of tons of coal where it lies?
Published June 5, 2002 | Companies and government administration determined to not give up on coal as a major energy source has come up with a new scheme to burn the coal in place, without actually having to dig it out, and still gain energy from it. The process is called Underground Coal Gasification (UCG). New Scientist has an article on UCG [subscription required] which they end with: “Whatever the local, short-term benefits of adopting UCG, in the long run… Continue reading
Extracting hydrogen from waste biomass
Published May 2, 2002 | Researchers at the Process Technology Group at Warwick University, UK, have come up with a new process to extracting hydrogen from wet waste, i.e. wast which contains large amounts of water, such as sewage or waste from paper mills. Warwick’s Ashok Bhattacharya says the new system could be twice as energy-efficient as existing systems, which are typically around 20 per cent efficient. “We’re able to get much more hydrogen out,” Bhattacharya says. The University press… Continue reading
OTEC Overview
Published March 29, 2002 | The paper Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC), December 1999, by Dr. Luis Vega is now available on the OTECnews site, by kind permission of the author. Dr. Vega has worked extensively with OTEC research and is Program Manager at the Pacific International Center for High Technology Research (PICHTR). This is an substantial paper on OTEC technology, including an analysis of the current situation and which steps needs to be taken next. The paper is… Continue reading
