Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) system takes advantage of the fact that ocean water temperatures near the surface are much hotter than deeper waters with differences being around the 20oC (70oF). Generally speaking, the colder waters pumped up from the ocean depth are made to interact with the hotter surface waters in a heat exchanger and the resulting in high pressure steam. This steam is strong enough to spin a turbine/generator assembly.
The following table shows an HC’s OTEC potential. The first data column is based on the recommended OTEC spacing of MW/km2 ( MW/mi2). The second data column shows what the HC would need to meets all of its energy consumption needs.
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Hot Water Energy Recycle
Since the production of energy in an OTEC system depends on a significant differential in waters,
it will be possible to "recycle" the energy that was used to produce hot water from the hotwater discharges of homes and industries. Each of these locales would have special drain pipes dedicated for "hot water" discharges whose entry would be a
thermostat
-controlled valve. As the hot water for home use can reach 60oC (140oF) the potential temperature diffrence for the OTEC system would be between 33oC (91oF) and 56oC (133oF) depending from which depth the ocean water is taken from. For industries, the differences would be even higher. Even part of the the energy from waters that have been heated by their use in cooling systems and processes can be recovered thus producing a method of recovering various industrial production energy.
For homes, hot water heating can be as much as
20%
of energy bills. So this recycling system will be quite significant there also.
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May 28, 2008