How To Turn The Ocean Into A Battery | Answers With Joe
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 18 พ.ค. 2024
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Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion, or OTEC, takes advantage of the sun's heating of the ocean to produce clean energy. It's pretty cool.
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LINKS LINKS LINKS:
phys.org/news/2011-10-vast-am...
www.oceanicinstitute.org/abou...
www.explainthatstuff.com/how-...
curry.eas.gatech.edu/Courses/...
www.makai.com/ocean-thermal-e...
curry.eas.gatech.edu/Courses/...
www.scientificamerican.com/ar...
Just Have A Think on OMTEC
• Ocean Mechanical Therm... - วิทยาศาสตร์และเทคโนโลยี
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Energy can be produced from any temperature differential. Getting energy from anything with a only a 20°C (36°F) differential is usually pretty hard, but water has such a high specific heat it makes sense. Typically the next problem is where to find such a temperature differential in nature since nature likes to equalize. The constant solar heating at only the surface of the ocean with deep ocean staying cool is perfect. I’m surprised I hadn’t heard (or thought) of OTEC before.
How is your comment six hours old, when the video just showed up as a fresh release in my feed?
Are you a time traveler?
@@yourlocaltoad5102 He's a member
Couldnt we build some type of building that would do this too?
@@Zayelion NO!
@@Zayelion Wouldn't get my hopes up for this one since; its not usable everywhere and has a low efficiency. I believe in next-gen-easy-to-scale battery- or flywheel-technology for capturing excess solar/wind-power.
The 2 biggest problems with OTEC are:
1) The large capital investment required to produce a relatively small amount of energy, due to the low efficiency (based on the thermodynamics / physics). Because the temperature difference between deep water and surface water isn't that much, relatively large (and expensive) installations are needed to produce relatively small amounts of energy.
2) The cost of transmission lines to get the power where you need it is surprisingly high, both to install and to maintain. Joe, you make the statement "we can just wire it back to land", but try working out the cost of those lines.
In conclusion, OTEC only works economically if you have a large city (or other large user of electricity) located very near a 3,000+ foot ocean trench. I have spent a fair amount of time over a few years searching for these deep ocean areas that are close to population centers, and there just aren't very many.
Joe, love your channel. Keep up the good work!
Makes sense investing big into something only for penny's doesn't make the economy rolling.
So if I had to sell it, I'd sell it like a bond. It's reliable, predictable, steady income. Income year after year, barring maintenance. And since people are only going to need and want more power, the value it produces should scale.
To summarize: It doesn't beat solar in cost/kwh and maintenance will be a big headache.
He says it can be coast based too, not just off shore platforms.
Well, there's Los Angeles and San Francisco. Also Miami (off the Atlantic side down the Puerto Rico trench). All three cities could probably benefit from OTEC.
Houston is on the Gulf Coast which is all continental and coastal, doesn't get deep enough to get cold enough for the differential, same goes with most of the other cities in the Gulf Coast (other than Miami, who dips their toes into some much deeper waters on the other side). Most of the East Coast is too far north to really get the temperature differential you'd need, which also is the problem with Seattle and Portland (who would otherwise have the Cascadia Ridge to dip into).
But LA, SanFran, and Miami would all be pretty decent places to set up 100 MW OTEC plants. And you know California would just love to jump at the chance at base-line green energy.
I hate being “that guy” Joe, but since I’m an oilfield geologist I should point out that you described oil formation not coal formation.
Coal tends to form in swamps and coastal deltas out of woody material like trunks, branches & roots. Chemically Different innit.
I wondered, but I'm not an expert in this field.
thanks, that was driving me crazy
He's wrong about alot of what he says.
@Peter Breis Technically they weren't fossilized as that the chemical replacement of all the material in the organism with rock forming minerals. Coal was formed by the organic material remaining in place and being compressed.
@Peter Breis you knock him for not knowing better then go on to claim it formed 365 mil yrs ago. Thats nonsense.
Around minute 4:00 when Joe lays out the principle I'm like "wow, that's really neat! I can't wait for Joe to hit us all with the infuriating reasons why we are not applying this on a large scale already. 😭"
I've had a loooong week. I'm glad I get to start this new one with a great Joe video.
Amen brother. Hope this ones a better one for you!
You and me both man. He is amazing at taking your mind off everything
Thank god for the Joe in the morning.
@makeshift marotte Its them damn globalization cargo ships moving all them beef sticks
Just make sure to Like, share and subscribe and Joe the Great will keep them coming.
I imagine when we reach Kardashev 1 there will a Joe Scott telling us how more efficient and clean would be to use a black hole than keep using our sun for energy
We are at Kardashian 10, forget Kardashev 1.
Martin D A 😂😂😭😭
Already does his name is Isaac Arthur. :)
@@martinda7446 Kardashev 1 uses all the energy of its planet its 2 that uses all the energy of its star .
@@martinda7446 This is just cringe
8:23 --> I think Indonesia deserves a mention, since it has 70 million more people than Brazil, is right on the equator, and is a nation of islands. This technology seems perfect for that country.
Well send them a link
@@Barskor1 info@indonesia.id
He didn't mention every viable country. Get over it.
Many areas of the Indonesian archipelago are rather shallow though which would limit the ability to get cold water. but the Java trench would be ideal and is close to the main population centers.
I’m more surprised there’s a joint venture between LockMart & a “Hong Kong” based company (not sure there’s much of a difference these days).
The CCP has ruined that with their new security law Lockheed is going to have to pull out.
I wish I had you as a teacher for all my subjects back in school
Man that would have been so cool to have him as a physics or bio teacher :)
@@benedek8259 it would
Me too
ME TOO!! Of course it would be really weird since Joe is a few years younger then me! LOL BTW-I totally dig your name, reminds me of one of my favorite YT commenters, “Just some Bigfoot with Internet Access”!
Exactly what I’ve commented on before. Honestly Joe- if even a fraction of our teacher population recreated your style & passion for their subject matter- I’m convinced many many students would do much better in school.
" They'ed have salt that would last forever!" , priceless
top secret is a great film
They'd*
🧂🧂🧂🧂🧂🧂🧂🧂🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂
@@VictorMatthieu
He also didnt put the word 'enough' in the sentence either.
@@tomasotreasaigh111 there are also random spaces and a comma out of place.
Joe; “So why aren’t these plants all over the place?”
Exxon; Starts typing........
Blame the voters who continually fall for the politicians who provide policy for campaign "donations" to the mining oligarchs. I think of them like con-artists - those are always going exist, it's up to people to resist them. If you're anti-intellectual enough you don't take any responsibility for reading and learning more and developing critical thinking skills, then you deserve to scammed, and likewise, a populace gets the government it deserves. We could start subsidising this tech and all sorts of other renewable efforts tomorrow, it's only conservative political parties who make sure that doesn't happen and it's business as usual for the Exxons of the world.
@@PinataOblongata Definitely not only conservative.
As a sidenote: these plants are probably not economically feasible. ThorCon's shipyard built liquid salt thorium reactors look a hell of a lot more compelling. The first real alternative to coal power for poorer nations.
@@OnlyKaerius Agreed! It's hard to beat the energy density of nuclear power.
They should make these with super efficient peltier type thermal electric converters, the best ones can get up to 15%, and they just need a heat pipe to more the thermal energy.
Near the end he makes it sound like this can cool the planet if done on large scale. The heats not being lost just moved. If large amounts of deep cold water are pulled up and warmed it will create a downward net flow causing the deep cold water to warm. This can destroy ecosystems. Not to mention the possibility that warming water around methane-hydrate deposits could release massive amounts of methane actually casing runaway global warming. Furthermore the cooling of the surface water would reduce evaporation rates and could cause droughts (again if done on a massive scale). Anytime we do something on a big enough scale we need to consider all the consequences.
It ain't gonna be that deep. And it's impact will had a small radius around whatever large scale they implement. Hot goes to cold, that's the only reliable law which will change your careful fearful perception.
Heat is being lost as energy has to be lost in the system due to the conservation of energy (heat energy turning into kinetic which turns into electrical energy). However the issue is how much is being lost and what impact that would have.
@@ZeInfidel Most of the electrical energy becomes heat again. Almost all. EMF into space is the only exception I can think of.
It doesn't really make sense to talk about the absolute efficiency with renewable energy.
Better to think about the cost per KW, compared to solar+battery for example.
Agreed, we get enough sunlight that we could harvest it at less than 5% efficiency and it would still be an amazing resource if it costs less than 5 cents per kwh to harvest this energy.
makes sence to me otherwise noone would read your coment ;)
It's true, in the end we pay for energy at cost not for efficiency.
Unless, of course, the energy used for maintenance drives it into a net loss. "We lose money on each sale, but we'll make it up in volume!"
I get a feelling this method is not very expensive, and that it can get even less with time.
I will forever call Fahrenheit "Freedom Units" 😂😂
Same here. LOL
And MPH are 'Murica units?
Heheheh. I will probably always say "Fahrenheit", but I kinda like the idea of the new usage. Were I to call the "F" anything else, I'd say "Funky units" or "units of Funk". "The low temperature for this evening is expected to be 58 degrees of Funk." ---Me
That's going to make it confusing when using a ruler that measures in freedom and independence units.
svvitchio mericans per hour
Cue a glimpse of the future when we discover that the lack of hurricanes is somehow destroying the planet...
It would. Nature should NOT be screwed around with. As far as i know hurricanes do have a genuinely important role in mixing the ocean. Without them in some parts of the world the ocean would be too cold. I assume hurricanes play a role in ocean currents as well.
I have my doubts about hurricanes being stronger because of global warming.. The examples given are all bad. Harvey, for example, was not a particularly strong or large hurricane. But a weather pattern entirely unrelated to the hurricane caused it to sit in one place and pump water from the ocean onto Texas. Sandy was also caused by a weather event that caused a late season hurricane to make a sharp left turn into NYC when it would normally go out to sea and not harm anyone. Also, our records of North American Atlantic hurricanes is very short. If you're talking about while they are out at sea, we're talking a few decades at most.
The same is true for global temperatures. We just do not have good data going back earlier than the 20th century and even then, the early 20th century doesn't have great worldwide records either. These temperatures are coming from proxy data. I just do not buy that they can determine the temperature down to 10ths of a degree Celsius
Hurricanes are never good.
But a bigger problem is that the Gulf Stream stops so It is really a reality at sea temperature rises in that the water crosses at the North Pole and the saline water sounds deep into the sea and thus the Gulf Stream starts by the temperature rises Would not produce so much saline water to keep the Gulf Stream going and it will have consequences worldwide
og at isen smelter så havet det stiger
Hurricane is the great equalizer. It prevent one area from becoming too hot or too cold. I live in the equator. It's always 37 to 42 degrees celcius on a clear sunny day here. But every year, a hurricane will come by an the temperature will drop significantly. Sometimes as low a 16 degrees celcius.
12:20 glad you talked about possible warming issues with the lower water!
After taking classes on air conditioning...This all makes a LOT of sense
There are whole classes on air conditioning?
@@chrstfer2452 Let me tell you about the Greendale Air Conditioning Repair School...
@@chrstfer2452 in my country, it's an elective and a part of mechanical engineering, at least in my University I'm in.
@@chrstfer2452 why not? there's, like, three disciplines minimum that goes into designing, building, and maintaining them. classes are usually only three months each and there's plenty to learn.
I've always said I would like to shake the hand(s), in the afterlife, of those who played a major part in the invention of air-conditioning!
💪🥶 I live on the US gulf coast where it's very humid & I am grateful every day.
*Freedom units*? HAHAHAHA, YOU'VE WON MY WEEK, SIR!
After lol'ing, I immediately thought of a few other "f" words...and lol'd again.
Came here for this
Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit was born in Danzig, Germany. But had Dutch, German, Polish, Lithuanian ancestry.
@@MrHichammohsen1
Yep, had to see if someone else commented because I legit lol'd when he said that...and scared the dog.
The big glaring issue with this that hasn't been discussed- This will lower the surface temperature, awesome. BUT, overall, this will be increasing water temperature, especially at depth. They're already worried about the gulf stream, decreasing the temperature differential between surface and deep water will expedite the loss of the atlantic currents (where the surface water drops down near greenland)
If this can be avoided, or completely negated, I'd be 100% for it. But fucking with earth's ocean's temperatures directly really scares the hell out of me.
Usual designs mix deep cold water with warm surface water, extracting the energy, and releasing the mixture at an intermediate depth with equal temperature. You won't affect surface or deep temperatures unless you built an extraordinary number of plants.
Overall temperature of the ocean will fall, as that 2% of energy extracted is produced from converting the ocean's thermal energy into electrical energy. It is conceivable if an area was over saturated with these platforms that the temperature differential between surface and depth could be diminished in that local area. However, considering that a Hurricane essentially does the same thing as these platforms (i.e. pull energy from the ocean surface thus reducing temperature surface/depth differential). It is hard to imagine a fleet of platforms pulling as much energy out of the ocean as one Hurricane.
Last time the Ocean current got disrupted by heat was the Permian Triassic Extinction.
Also realistically you can do something like this with almost any water source. Here in Washington many people run geothermal heat pumps out of creeks and rivers by burying their outdoor loop during summer when the water level is low.
From a fellow “Scott” up in Toronto, thank you Joe (and your team) for all the hard work. Your videos consistently enlighten and brighten our lives.
Hey thanks man.
...or should I say "brother."
(in my best Hulk Hogan voice)
Joe Scott lol..I always thought you resemble hulk hogan...😂
Joe, is, Canadian?
Great, now I must see "Top Secret" while eating mac&cheese. Thanks
Goddam that sounds like a great evening.
Pro tip mix the radioactive yellow sandwich cheese with milk and butter to make normal cheese never solidified and be creamy af because food chemistry
Joe, I am so glad that you are covering this! This is the best form of energy that I know of that rarely gets any press! OTEC is a brilliant form of technology that is too overlooked.
In addition to this, cities can provide hydro thermal (cold water from the ocean) to their residents from the cold water loop. That alone would save massive amounts of energy!
Always great to see these kinds of solutions being looked at. The Liquid Air Battery Highview are building is another one worth a look
7:28 It’s complimentary to other renewables??? Does it say nice things about windmills?
The conversation would make you blush....
I’m a conspiracy theorist, I believe they are propellers that keep the word spinning😉
[the Renkine cycle] "....but it generally boils down to 4 parts."
Damnit, Joe. I actually inhaled coffee with that one.
now boil the coffee to power your turbine
Honestly, that was unintentional.
...But I'll still take credit.
My new favorite TH-cam channel. I've already learned so much, including how much I don't know. Thanks for sharing your beautiful mind Joe.
My wife and I toured the research facility that is doing this near Kona, HI last year. The platforms are anchored offshore with pipes to onshore facility. They utilize large plastic pipes. The equipment had the name Lockeed Martin on it. They use the electricity to power their building. Improving system efficiency is the main issue.
I remember reading about this about 15 years ago in a wired magazine article. Couldn't find it again. I like the condensation on the condenser feed pipe to make fresh water as well.
Where have all the popular science and popular mechanics magazines gone, all the past info is just gone!
Nothing happens in July for 5 days.
July: *How to turn Ocean into a battery*
Back in the 70's, my best friend Tom's dad worked for Sea Solar Power, Inc., an engineering consulting firm run by J. Hilbert Anderson, who I am guessing (after watching Joe's video) is the Anderson of the "Anderson cycle." My friend and I would go into the Sea Solar Power building in Spry, PA (a beautiful remodeled old fire station) and teach ourselves to program in Dartmouth BASIC (and play Star Trek) on a Wang 2200 computer (with 8 inch floppy drives and core memory) way back in 1976. Sea Solar Power had a large and highly detailed, free standing 8' x 8' model of a 25 megawatt floating ocean thermal energy platform that my friend Tom and I were once allowed to display and explain at our high school's "energy fair" back in the post oil crisis days when energy was a hot topic. I remember standing around the beautiful model explaining ocean thermal energy to US Representative Bill Goodling back in 1977. We thought we had him sold on it. But he was one congressman and we were 14. After joining Dallastown High School's debate team, I parlayed my knowledge of ocean thermal energy into an affirmative debate proposal--a good match for the alternative energy theme for scholastic debate in the US in 1977. I am pretty sure we were the only "ocean thermal energy" plan in the state of Pennsylvania (maybe in the US). 40 years later, I drive by Sea Solar Power's old building on occasion. It is looking kind of shabby and houses a real estate office now. Another example of what might have been. Sigh. On a positive note, I went on to earn my BS and PhD in Computer Science at Penn State and U. Mass Amherst. Computers took off even if ocean thermal energy (and jetpacks) didn't. Thanks Tom and Ben Dambly. Thanks J. Hilbert Anderson.
It has potential.
And I can see some spinoff applications for this in relation to geothermal energy.
And I'm fully confident that we can find ways to improve the efficiency to way better than 7%.
_"I'm fully confident that we can find ways to improve the efficiency to way better than 7%.
"_
No, it's called the Carnot efficiency, the maximum theoretical limit. You literally can't go beyond that theoretical limit, and in practice usually only get a fraction of it. It's so low in this case due to the narrow temperature difference, approx. 298K to 278K. Hence E(c)=1-(278/298)=0.0671=6.7%. You cannot improve it.
The majority of stuff we have today was theoretically impossible decades ago. The only way forward is through dedication and innovation. It may not be possible to attain above 7%, that doesn't mean we can't create a new system or buddy system to work alongside to increase efficiency.
@@1FatLittleMonkey Wrong because it is being limited by the engineering employed not the Carnot limit.
@@Barskor1 it's being limited to 2-3% by engineering. The Carnot limit is the limit for a 'lossless' system, that's a hard ceiling for all heat-engines. That said, using super-heated water near a volcanic vent instead of surface water would get you a higher maximum efficiency.
One way to improve the efficiency is to let the surface water temp reach 90C :). Go global warming ?
Awesome video as always.
One inccurary in representation at @4:55 (& @ 5:20 & @6:00) though.
Evaporator is supposed to be placed in warm water, condenser in cool water.
Keeping them both at same temperature gives us nothing.
Also, if and when done on scales as massive as present day energy consumption, we will be warming up lower and lower layers of the ocean over decades/ centuries. The potential effects of that need to be considered.
Top Secret reference for the win!
Two points:
1. Using a closed volume multi-chamber Stirling cycle instead of a Rankine cycle may be more efficient.
2. Taking the warm water from near the surface and the cold water from the deep then expelling them at the depth(s) which most closely match their final temperatures would not degrade the performance of downstream units.
I mean no offense but if you figured this out that quickly the engineer working on this probably have thought about it
@@DTB1752 : The engineers will commonly spend their time focussing on the hard bits rather than the easy bits, so that stuff might not have made it into the calculations. After all, if they can make it work without the easy improvements, then it's easier to make it work in general.
Huh? You completely forgot the energy required to pump the now warmer, formerly deep water, to the original lower depths. Nothing is free.
@@dnomyarnostaw
I guess you could build the plant at the depth of the estimated condenser water outlet temperature. I wonder if you could supplement the electric power with osmotic power driven by the brine and desalinated water from the open or semi-open cycle.
Creating a waterfall in the ocean… Mist Lift OTEC Is the simplest to operate and is the most efficient of the OTEC’s. Mist lift OTEC Can also be used inside of the cooling towers at nuclear power plants to cool the water down before releasing into nearby rivers and also producing more electricity and efficiency (+7%) from the nuclear power plant. It’s all about two phase flow of water. OTEC can also be used to produce the most abundant supply of hydrogen, thru electrolysis, and then shipped to other continents to run their power plants and vehicles. By upwelling the deep nutrient rich waters and distributing them to the surface increases food for fish life. No new technology other than figuring out how to deploy the deep water pipe is needed.😉👍Stuart Ridgway came up with this concept in the early 80s when he was 65 years old. The concept was also proven at UCLA.
Hydrogen is a junk fuel (leaks through every material known to humanity, damages a lot of them on the way, poses an explosion risk inside the crank case of ICE engines because of it's combustion ratio, not a good match for the compression & combustion ratios of existing ICE engines, not lubricative while still posing the risk of altering physical properties of lubricant via hydrogenation, fuel cell materials are too rare for widespread adoption as an ICE alternative, turbines are too maintenance heavy & expensive to be a good replacement for ICE engines, and only half the per-volume energy density of methane: only per-mass energy density and generation efficiency favor hydrogen), you want to convert it to methane at the earliest opportunity.
However, given that energy, hydrogen, and carbon dioxide are the only inputs, doing it at the OTEC plant would be the best bet, so the choice of output fuel is the only defect in the idea.
Nice to see Mist Lift hasn't been forgotten. Stuart is my dad, and he was very happy in those days. I remember him building mist generators with garden hoses in the back yard. The patent is long expired, in case anyone wants to build a plant.
@@dridgway He is Awsome! Send Elon Musk a message on it.
Douglas Ridgway I had a great opportunity to meet your father back in late 2008 and we had a very long and fruitful discussion. I have ever since been trying to get this concept into industrial use.👍 Douglas, that colorful drawing that your dad had made into a T-shirt was done by me for him.🥰
@@ninjasmoke100 :)
"Our task must be to free ourselves... by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and it's beauty."
--Albert Einstein
(𝘗𝘳𝘰𝘤𝘦𝘦𝘥𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘥𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘨𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘬 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘤𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘰𝘧 𝘢𝘵𝘰𝘮𝘪𝘤 𝘸𝘦𝘢𝘱𝘰𝘯𝘴)
Because that was why he did it. "I am going to make myself a pretty little bomb with this." ....get real.
@@wolfvale7863 triggered
@@Kirealta hey... free the atoms too...
Ok, so conserve resources. Wow, what a genius.
That clip from Top Secret was a huge throwback! Makes me want to rewatch that silliest of gems! Also: Cool energy idea. It's essentially a giant heat pump. How well does that actually scale up?
I love that scene. Makes me laugh every time.
Great for Hawaii, could subsidize some energy for cities on coast near the equator that also have deep water right off shore. It also cost a pretty penny.
@@intuitive_soul But Hawaii has MAGMA!!! Isn't that a few orders of magnitude more efficient? Magma/Sea Water exchangers would RULE!
James White unfortunately not at this time, or in the rakine system. Molten lava can be used but it would be the same type of system so in Hawaii it would be easier to use the ocean platform dealing with lower specific heat compounds. In areas that don’t have ocean access it is a good thought but.... drilling down to get that much heat is not feasible. Which brings us to 4th gen nuclear plants being the most ideal energy source at this time, when other alternatives aren’t available. Some well invested 4th gen plants don’t produce waste and very little CO2
@@intuitive_soul +100 for nuclear. But we're not supposed to talk about that.
It is a good idea and it can be applied to the temperature difference above and below land too.
Great video Joe. I've been following OTEC since the 70s. The first time I visited NELHA - the Makai project wasn't even a gleam in someone's eye and the first generator project was already, essentially, shut down (the equipment ran but they already knew they had a problem with scaling to actual energy demands).
But the were making fresh water by freezing sea water. Another nearly zero maintenance idea that wasn't practically scalable at the time. And I thought Science Fiction had come to an end. The real deal had taken the lead... Well, some day.
"Freedom units" xD
Ocean Man, take me by the hand. Lead to the land, that you understand
Ah, i see you are a man of culture as well
Another great video Joe! I like watching your videos that deal more with fringe science just because it's more appealing to me, so Im always surprised how much I enjoy your videos even if it's a subject I'm not too interested in. It just goes to show the level of quality you put into your work and these videos. Keep up the awesome work man. I'll keep watching and learning as long as you make them. P.S. We love you too Joe!
Now this one I understand. Thank you
The sun is amazing. It’s literally a raging nuclear inferno that shows up to brighten our day.
I'm afraid that's selection bias. If there were no sun, there would be no indication that there should even be a day.
If that comment were sarcastic I would think it described my mother in law
@Mal-2 KSC We wouldn’t be alive without the sun so you can’t disagree with a comment which says the sun is amazing
Huh, like my mom.
Until the geoengineering blocks the sun's rays.
How is it this is the first I've heard of this. Still looking good for clean energy in the future. Apparently there are microbes that eat plastic in the Oceans as well. So Two cheers for the sea. Good work old chop 😂
I'm glad you mentioned the gulf stream. I couldn't help but think that at large enough scale the weather will be affected.
I've never heard of OTEC before I'm so happy that I found this. Plus 'biofouling prevention' was something I've never thought of googling until now. Apparently one of the methods is used by ships with Ultrasonic waves ? Fascinating, I wonder what else is being used. If this kind of prevention is developed there's a lot more we could do without worrying about this idea.
"Spins a turbine, or turban..." Now I have images of spinning turbans... 🤣
Con: Politics and conspiracy theories.
Bingo
Depends on the country.
A well functioning country such as Japan won’t have those problems.
Others..... Yeah it’s not going to end well....
We'll just lump the conspiracy theorist that have an issue with OTEC with flat earthers no one will take them seriously so there won't be any issue with them. Politics though.....??
That is a monster-sized con.
Now I know Poli means many so tic must mean tick so politics = many ticks. Only there in it for money and sometimes blood?
@@KarryKarryKarry What exactly makes a country "well functioning"?
Gavin Green The OECD has a paper on governance and if we use that “value for tax money” approach then it would be logical to assume that nation states that offers most bang for the buck would be capable of delivering new solutions to the citizens without having to wade through excessive legislation. Which is why it’s surprising to see Hawaii already having a generator up and running. It’s a case of local governance stepping up and having dodged the entire country’s legislative branch. No oil money was harmed during the construction so the oil companies have let that one slip?
There’s another system already developed and being used that utilizes the oceans waves to compress air, which then is used to turn a turbine. I love your channel Joe! Great topic!!
That is very interesting. I'll look into it a little more. Thanks for the video, Joe.
12:00 I dunno...I can't help thinking that messing with the temperature of the oceans to stop hurricanes might have other unforeseen circumstances.
Honestly even on the most massive scale it'd be hard to actually lower the temperature of the oceans appreciably.
*queue new climate threat in 100 years*
Freedom units. Really!!
right behind freedom fries
Aren't these "freedom" units from the monarchies?
It seems that deep well thermal sources may be a bigger part of our future than we expected - both OTEC and deep well geothermal. It's cool to hear that demo plants are already operating.
I love your content so much. I appreciate how you always get me interested about the topic before you talk about it. Much love, keep on keeping on.
Thanks man. Glad you like it.
"Freedom units"
You've overlooked one thing in the cons section: you're cooling the ocean's surfuce but heating the deep ocean. Heating of the deeper ocean is actually a very legit environmental concern that's come to light with recent climate change
But does the cool water from the deep get pumped back down at the end of the cycle. It seems like all the used water is dumped at the surface and allowed to settle wherever it wants
If large amounts of deep cold water are pulled up and warmed it will create a downward net flow causing the deep cold water to warm. This can destroy ecosystems. Not to mention the possibility that warming water around methane-hydrate deposits could release massive amounts of methane actually casing runaway global warming. Furthermore the cooling of the surface water would reduce evaporation rates and could cause droughts (again if done on a massive scale). Anytime we do something on a big enough scale we need to consider all the consequences.
It doesn't heat up the deep ocean; the heat is actually transferred to that middle layer where the surface and deep water are pumped to. @Chemtech2010's conserns still apply though. A study of the impact on the marine ecosystem and on the effect of potential acidification because of increased H₂CO₃ (carbonic acid from disolved CO₂) there would have to be done for each location, making this even more expensive if you want to do it right.
The cooled water can be dumped on the surface or 300 feet below the surface, your choice.
One of these seems like it wouldn't make much of an impact... thousands of them... that a lot of circulating of water that will have some sort of large scale impact...
2:32 and onward - dude you explained steam power better than 4+ years of highschool and 3 years of college. Awesome stuff man
first time hearing about OTEC thx Joe
"We don’t inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children."
-'Native American proverb
I typically understand sayings like these but I just don't get this one.
“If we rip the hearts out of living prisoners, that makes it rain” -Native American proverb
Dezert Punk basically saying our world is not given to us by our ancestors, instead we take it from future generations. global warming and all that.
"we take it all from you and also from entire of your future children"
- Illegal immigrants from Europe
Why are people upset when you bring up native american proverbs lmao
I died when he said 212 degrees freedom units
Wow, my country can use this. Thanks for the idea joe
The same process can be used with brine ponds, which unties it from coastlines. An extremely high salt concentration allows for a very high temperature difference, with the hot layer below the cold. There was at least one pilot plant, in Israel, 15 or 20 years ago.
Joe, you beat me to it. I was going to comment on how scary that sounds to just nonchalantly lower ocean surface temps. What would that do to the ecosystem around the power plants? Everything from algae to birds and fish probably rely on the ocean's surface to be at a certain temp. That's why climate change is such a big problem. And then, yes, the gulf stream and global conveyor belt would probably be affected, also. It sounds great at first but long term, we'd have to be careful not to go too far.
Yes. I was thinking about how when we think we are helping, we inadvertently damage some part we didn't anticipate
Could the reduction in temp be used to offset the increase in ocean temp from global warming? Sorry if that's a stupid question...I'm pretty science minded but this is waaay outside my strengths
@@mikemurphy5898 I don't think the cooling of the surface waters is a problem (unless you go overboard on this and cool it too much), but what Joe forgets to mention is that this doesn't actually cool the ocean; it only moves heat from the surface to a deeper water layer. So while it cools the surface water, it heats up deeper waters. And we don't know what that would do to the ecosystems there.
I've not got numbers on this, but given the sheer volume of the Earth's oceans, having any impact beyond very local scales seems very unlikely, let alone enough of an impact to counteract the warming effect of climate change. It's a bit like worrying that asphalt leads to climate change (because it is dark and has a low albedo)...in theory, sure and it does contribute to the urban heat-island effect, but if you run the numbers the global impact is absolutely tiny.
Man I'm suprised you didn't talk about ground bores where you dug deep enough to where when water goes in instantly boils creates steam goes through a turbine then condenses repeats.
Thank you for your enlightening videos!
First I’ve heard of this idea. I love it.
facepalm. here is much simpler and efficient variant of this: 2 close looped rings that are non-isolated only on heat exchange ends. and Stirling engine optimized for low temp difference in the middle. this system will be much more efficient as both closed loops will not use a lot of energy to pump medium. Stirlings are very efficient and can work with low temp difference. And it will not be afraid of sea water bcs its closed loop.
Yes! This was what came to my mind to!
Naw, you just added a layer. You STILL need a heat exchanger or two to get energy in and out of the closed loop. Fouling City
Show me a LTD stirling with significant power output. With such low temps the size would need to be enormous to transfer enough heat to the displacer cylinder.
Years ago I had a plan to turn my attic into the displacer cylinder of a giant stirling engine, and use the cold end to preheat my hot water.
The efficiency of any heat engine is capped at the Carnot efficiency, which is very low when the temperature difference is low. LTD stirlings have terrible efficiency, and low power density as well. Turbines that can run gas at high pressure (like the ammonia) are much more practical.
Or 15% efficiency thermal to electron generators (Peltier junctions) make it so much easier to make it would be worth the drop in efficiency, and heat pipes to transfer the energy without anything moving.
Unfortunately I am going to have to file this one in the same category as thorium reactors, cobalt free/solid state batteries, Gateway Foundation's Von Braun/Voyager station, and the SLS; if anything is actually sent to production, and the idea gains popularity, I might get excited. Until then, it's just an concept and those are all too common.
PS: I know the SLS is already in production, I am just one of those people that loves to rag on it. That's what happens when you go so far over budget and fall so far behind schedule. ;P
I know a guy who goes to the Middle East every few years to do maintenance on huge diesel turbo rotary engines that power huge generators , go Wankel !
Joe, could you go deeper into the potential danger for the gulf stream, other currents and temperature dependant eco systems?
Imo we'd "mix" the oceans a little more and thereby dump more energy into the depths which would cool the surface but kill the energy potential for the gulf stream and it would likely also not really benefit the poles since we'd expand the warm zone at the top.
In fact, looking at it like this we might even heighten the overall energy uptake of the oceans. If we run those things by day we'd disperse the energy into a larger volume of water and by night not as much of that energy might be radiatet off at night whuch would mean a net uptake of solar energy and heat the planet even quicker.
I'm concerned about about the ecological effect on deep sea life being sucked through a system then dumped at warm surface and, cold water effecting surface life, especially microscopic fish food. Particularly if these systems are scaled up.
There are always impacts if you think hard enough about trying to pull energy directly from the world around you. There is always a cost. The only thing I can think of that would produce power on a planetary scale and not impact the ecosystems on Earth would be systems that gather or produce energy off planet. Large solar arrays on the moon, in space etc.
Experience from early projects shows that nutrient rich low level seawater dramatically increases marine life at the surface.
Google "OTEC MARINE BENEFITS FISH" to find papers like the one by Clark C K Liu that have discussed it.
"They'd have enough salt to last forever."
Lmao WTF are you doin, Joe?
Where do you get the energy for flash evaporation though?
Or is this a perpetual motion machine?
You get it from the temperature difference between surface water & deep water, which in turn gets it from equatorial photon absorption vs polar heat radiation (both absorption & radiation happen in much broader circumstances than that, but this works as a simple version).So, ultimately the energy comes from the absorption of the Sun's visible light working against the emission of infrared light from the Earth.
Water will boil at 75 f or 30 c in a vacuum if you spray that warm water into a vacuum POOOF! flash evaporation.
Part of your discussion about Ocean as a source of energy is interesting to me because I lived in the UAE and they have desalination plants and it would appear that they have no shortage of fresh potable water.
I live in The Bahamas when you said No hurricane I was completely on board! Even after you said only 2% output.
I'm that freaked out after last year and Dorian.
Cooler ocean temps means thicker wetsuit, I'm against this
My first thought exactly! 😂
Hey Joe, another awesome video, I love your content so much. OTEC is cool but we need to find a different way of converting energy from one form to another. That has always been one of my biggest problems with electricity generation is just a glorified steam engine. Thanks for the video, I really enjoyed this video.
Being a seafarer i can say, marine growth can be countered upto a certain extent by passing small currents or using paint which peel off automatically. The biggest problem wrt maintenance of sea water systems are corrosion, pipes corrosion, heat exhanger corrosion, well they can be countered too by having plate type heat exchangers with anticorrosive plates (which we use on ships) which will drive the costs up significantly... but still sea water corrosion can never be fully halted.
im watching tis right after hurricane laura. I am floored by how on time this man is"hurricanes are getting stronger and will continue to get stronger in the future".
I'm almost sure that 5°C is actually 4°C as water's the densest on that temperature.
The oceans get warmed slightly from underneath, by the interior heat of the earth. Not far under that thin ocean crust is magma at a couple thousand degrees.
Salt water is different.
I am happy imagining that when the whales pee in the water, the temperature rises a little. Don't really care if it actually works that way.
2:18 .. I expected to cut back to Joe later in the video and see him eating a bowl of Mac and Cheese and doing something like, "Oh! Excuse me!" while he puts the fork down and continues talking.
Want really nice Mac and cheese? Look into Sodium Citrate!
Awesome video, interesting all the siilarities with geothermal plants...
The open loop and hybrid systems can also be used to generate electricity another way. Salt water passed across a membrane with fresh water on the other side develops an electrical potential on the membrane. So, a secondary use for the fresh water from the hybrid system would be to run alongside salt water in cells of alternating membranes before using the fresh water for other uses and discharging the salt water. This could generate additional power for each platform or shore plant while adding little to the actual size of the plant, and without reducing the thermal output.
Bruh how did someone dislike when they haven’t seen the video?
It was the ocean
His ex must have done that
Likely a certain anti-science political group who reject all forms of renewable energy in favor of coal & oil.
Haters gonna hate. Or maybe it was someone from patreon or someone that is subscribed to the youtube version of patreon. They see the videos first
Bots bro :(
It’ll all be obsolete when cold fusion finally kicks off in 20 years.... *ahem*
That same thing has been said for decades...
This is my favorite way to start my week.
Very interesting. Thanks for the video!
I’m no expert but I feel like it would have adverse effects on the marine ecosystem
I remember a project a while ago was looking at bringing deep ocean water to the surface in order to bring the nutrients from the deep ocean up to where plankton and algae could use them, in order to boost photosynthesis and c02 absorption. So maybe it could have a positive effect for that?
depends on how strong the pumps are it might not be an issue. they’d just have to design pipe intakes and outtakes that reduce the water velocity at the endpoints of the pipes, as well as some filters probably. and just don’t build them on coral reefs obviously. plus they need to be in fairly deep waters anyway.
It’s less adverse than wave generators or oil drilling and trawl fishing. But some species might suffer as a consequence of colder surface water.
But since there’s already operational generators out there I’m sure the marine biologists are keeping an eye on the surrounding ocean.
Especially in Japan... They want their squid and fish for the dinner tables.
To a limited degree it counters the effects of global warming. Sadly it works only in the less affected areas. But in the immediate future the limited return of investment will limit the total amount of water exchanged anyway.
Unless you filter out the nutrients, this sounds like an invasive algueal bloom waiting to happen.
nuclear fission is literally the best power source out there.
Thorium-salt reactors are the best way to go!
Hydro-Power wins all day.
Thank You for highlighting our channel and Patrick! This rocks!
oceanic cooling via the barge generators could also slow the melt of Thwaites glacier, along with the ice caps in their entirety
and that's *cool*
100 years from now--we got to stop this ocean cooling.
Solution--let's go back to fossil fuels
Think I remember reading a book by Arthur C Clark that was talking about using the different temperature layers in the oceans, we are talking about me remember something I read 40 years ago. One advantage he talked about was bringing nutrient rich water up from the depths allowing more fish around such things.
Just rewatched this and the first thing that came to my mind this time around was the question of how well these plants and platforms will be able to weather a hurricane, or even a tropical storm. Don't want to rain on the party, But given where these things have to be...
What I love about lowering the surface temperature of the ocean is that absolutely nothing could go wrong.
Excellent Top Secret reference!
Amazing video, love the possibilities
I really love all of your videos, this one was definitely interesting to think about. I still wish you did random topic Thursdays though, I like those... 😁
this is by far the most interesting video from you. an eco-friendly solution to power that could be used as a desalination device and possibly could reduce the strengths of hurricanes.