Pursuing the Economical Enhancement of Supercritical Fluids! by Johnnie Buttram
Please find below the
Semi-Finalist Evaluation
Judges'' comments
The fundamental idea of mining energy from the Earth is sound. The problem is whether this is at all practical and economical. The case made in the proposal falls of providing convincing evidence.
The biggest issue is what would be required to access and lift the supercritical fluids. The stresses on a 5 km vertical pipe in the ocean will be large. Much more details will need to be provided to convince readers that this is feasible, and indeed cost-effective.
Supercritical water is also highly corrosive, which limits its use in many proposed applications. At best, the pipe material would need to be an expensive steel alloy and even then it may corrode rapidly.
Another issue is that pollutants (such as sulfur) will be contained in the fluids. They will be expensive to control.
Finally, even if successful, no link between this project and reducing GHG emissions in the electricity system was given. Even if we can turn the supercritical fluids into electricity at sea, how would we practically/efficiently get that electricity to markets?
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