Cold Water Energy

[wulf]

Here's an energy source I haven't considered before - deep sea cold water (Wired magazine)!

Wulf

[Muddypause]

Hmm...

There does seem to be an awful lot of money about for certain alternative energy projects.

This one seems in the main to be about using the cold of deep sea water as a refrigerant in various ways. Much talk about huge pipes to bring it to the surface, but nothing about how to get it to where it is needed.

There is a brief bit about generating power. Now, my physics is not good, and the article is probably only the briefest of synopsis, but I reckon this rates right up there with the ever popular perpetual motion machine:

"Power Generation:
Pipes draw warm water from the ocean surface and cold water from the seabed. The warm water enters a vacuum chamber and is evaporated into steam that drives an electricity-producing turbine. The cold water condenses the steam back into water for drinking and irrigation."

There is a mention about the oceans being an effective solar collector; I would have thought heat pumping would be possible, though it is not easy to convert it into a high grade form of energy like electricity.

[Wombat]

Yeah, sounds a bit sus i admit, although I have heard of this Craven character (didn't know he was still around) and he is no fool. I suppose that even the great have their blind spots.

There is still the centralised generation requiring distribution problem, rather than the decentralised, do-it-yourself stuff. As mentioned in a previous thread, this will allow it to be controlled and taxed, so i am not surprised that there is money invested in it. If you ever see some of the Docos on some of the "weapons" that both the US and Russia invested in during the cold war, there is plenty of money around if you get the right people interested.

Nev