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Carl Fischer

May 9, 2015
10:01

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Initially it will be necessary to prototype, at lab scale, the system and then produce a small ocean plant for testing, which can be accomplished within the first 5 years. Jim, how much would a lab scale pilot cost? Any ideas? Thanks

Jim Baird

May 11, 2015
10:58

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A diagram and discussion of a lab scale pilot that would test the heat pipe OTEC theory is available at http://bada.hb.se/bitstream/2320/14746/1/OTEC%20MATTERS%202015%20webb.pdf page 142. I would expect the experiment could be performed in the right setting in the range of $1 to $2 million. The lab scale experiment for electrolysis of sea water which sequesters CO2 and neutralizes ocean acidity has already been performed see https://www.llnl.gov/news/livermore-scientists-develop-co2-sequestration-technique-produces-supergreen-hydrogen-fuel . All that process needs is an ocean based renewable energy source for power. Thanks for your interest poscap.

Carl Fischer

May 11, 2015
12:02

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Do you have any calculations that support your numbers ("...in the range of $1 to $2 million") i.e. what you base it on etc.? Thanks

Jim Baird

May 11, 2015
01:09

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I don't because some of the issues like safety and compliance are independent of the size of the experiment. This one would produce about 1500 watts of power. Dr. James Lau, PhD Physics seems to think you could do this for about 50,000 USD but I am highly skeptical. If you would like to contact him directly his email is jameslau2@gmail.com . I am sure he would be more than happy to supply you with his data.

Carl Fischer

May 11, 2015
01:10

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Will do Jim. Appreciate the contact details. Thanks

Michael Hayes

May 30, 2015
03:37

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Hello Jim, Your proposal hits on a large number of important technologies and your writing is clear. I would like to offer a few technical points which may fit into the scenario you're proposing. 1) Up-welling of electrolized H2 will produce significant pressure within the up-welling pipe head and thus the pressurized H2 (kenetics) can be used to energize a sizable desalinization operation. It is a 2-for-1 opportunity. In brief, up-welling of gas within a pipe creates an 'air lift pump'. As I'm sure you recognize, this will create a head pressure which can be used for multiple cultivation and processing/refining operations. See below link. https://www.google.com/search?q=air+lift+pump&espv=2&biw=1366&bih=667&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=PflpVYTIIYH7oQSU04HQAw&ved=0CCYQsAQ 2) The 'perpetual salt fountain' concept is related to this overall up-welling issue and offers important insights about up-welling. See link below. https://www.google.com/search?q=perpetual+salt+fountain&espv=2&biw=1366&bih=667&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=CPppVaLXM5DfoASEnYHYDw&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAg And, it has been found that the above form of up-welling will cause CO2 out-gassing and production of CO2 via dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) reacting with surface dynamics. 3) The up-welling of artificially warmed fluids, if not within an a well insulated pipe, will warm the local water column and thus create an external (un-confined) up-welling of CO2/DIC rich water. Thus, the final carbon foot print may be larger than what is accounted for within the process. 4)Shunting the out-gassed/produced CO2 into sealed chemosynthetic cultivation tank farms will allow for the utilization/sequestration of much of the generated CO2. The excess CO2 not used bythe cultivation effort can be sequestered through multiple paths. However, it is important that we utilize the CO2 to the fullest extent possible with sequestration being the last option. 5) Further, electrolysis of saltwater produces significant amounts of chlorine gas which will need to be captured and properly used/stored. The upper atmospheric chemistry is highly sensitive to chlorine and unchecked chlorine production/release can devastate the ozone layer in short order. 6) Electrolysis of seawater to create 'Biorock' is a good reference when working in this overall field. Dr. Wolf Hillbertz foresaw much of the 'Multi-Purpose OTEC' potential back in the 1970-1980s. A link to one of his papers is included below. http://www.wolfhilbertz.com/downloads/1979/hilbertz_IEEE_1979.pdf (Please see Fig. 30) 7) You have speculated that "It would take therefore a full war time effort the rest of this century to reach OTEC’s full potential.". Many in the OTEC field have the same view. However, it may be possible to see robust OTEC usage in far less time if the focus of the OTEC development is first applied to off-shore biomass production, which can produce carbon negative portable biofuels/biochar, food, feed, etc., with on-shore grid support as a secondary priority. 8) The oxyhydrogen reaction in algae (chemosynthesis) uses hydrogen to replace the need for photosynthesis in some species of micro-algae and thus production of hydrogen is a needed component to a vast scale carbon negative biofuel/biochar scenario. Currently, many who are waking up to the value of chemosynthesis are calling for liberating the H2 from the biomass via hydrothermal conversion of the biomass. I, however, recommend the use of an advanced perpetual salt fountain which uses heat and electrolysis for many of the reasons you have detailed. 9) By focusing solely upon feeding the on-shore electrical grid, the OTEC operations profits, and thus operations, are dependent upon high $bbl prices. It is possible that fracking will keep energy prices far below what typical OTEC needs as a competitive price for the foreseeable future. In conclusion, I enjoyed reading your well informed proposal and found your focus upon the existential threat of deep ocean thermal inertia to be spot on. Also, thank you for the 'Solomon et al' paper (I thought I had read all of her works!). Part of the work I'm pulling together under the IMBECUS Protocol attempts to address the ocean thermal problem set through the deployment of vast scale ocean biomass production platforms which can also function as vast scale surface cooling platforms in association with other cooling methods such as Marine Cloud Brightening. In short, deep-welling cold pH adjusted water while up-welling nutrients, CO2 for use in the production of carbon negative biofuels/biochar hits on the majority of the critical key issues which are critical to our survival. Thank you for your work, Michael

Jim Baird

May 31, 2015
11:18

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Hello Michael and thank you. First I have considered the upwelling head in a series of rendering I did for a 100MW system that is available at http://www3.telus.net/gwmitigationmethod/100MWPlant.htm Images 57 through 61 show how the pressure of the gas is used to augment the electric motors that run the pumps that return condensed working fluid to the surface and the impeller motors that draw warm and cold water through the evaporator and condenser respectively and move the system to fresh water. The CO2 problem is one of the main reasons I and some colleagues are opposed to the conventional design for OTEC and instead favor the heat pipe design which uses the phase changes of the working fluid to move heat rather than large masses of water. The only upwelling that would occur in that case would be due to the convection of the warmed deep water and this is estimated at about 4 meters/year in the paper presented by Norman Rogers to the 2012 AGU. http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2012AGUFM.A23A0182R The downward movement of the vapor in a heat pipe would be so rapid there is no need for insulation. It would be counterproductive in any case considering the objective is to condense the vapor so it can be returned to repeat the power cycle. Paul Curto, former chief technologist with NASA says in his OP ed American Energy Policy V -- Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion, "If the condensing end of the heat pipe is exposed to a thousand feet or more of near freezing temperatures below the thermocline, no cold water pumping is required. The parasitic losses are cut in half. The costs for the cold water pipe are eliminated, along with the cold water return pipe and condenser pumps, the cleaning system for the condenser, and the overall plant efficiency approaches 85% of Carnot vs. about 70% with a cold water pipe. The parasitic losses could be reduced as much as 50% and the complexity, mass (and cost) of the system reduced by at least 30%. The vast reduction in operating costs and environmental impacts would be worth investigation alone." Further he points out, "no water from the bottom is released into the upper strata of the ocean, trapping all the CO2 deep beneath the thermocline." Chlorine is a problem with sea water electrolysis but there has been work done on anodes that are selective for oxygen and in the renderings I show desalinators operating at 1000 meters which use the ambient pressure of 100 bar for reverse osmosis to produce pure water which then is electrolyzed. This approaches has maintenance issues but in the comments to this article http://theenergycollective.com/jim-baird/423076/carbon-sequestering-energy-production some other workarounds for chlorine problem are suggested as well as other approaches to producing "supergreen" hydrogen. I have a problem with upwelling to produce biomass because of the CO2 issue but perhaps the bigger problem is the thermal stratification as is discussed here http://theenergycollective.com/jim-baird/184496/ocean-thermal-energy-conversion . Phytoplankton appear to be dieing off at an alarming rate due to thermal stratification that would be moderated by moving surface heat into the deep with heat pipes. These also significantly reduce the capital cost of OTEC because they are an order of magnitude smaller than cold water pipes leading to the 30% cost reduction Paul Curto points to. Shylesh Muralidharan did an MIT masters thesis on the Assessment of ocean thermal energy conversion - http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/76927 that shows OTEC has the highest capacity and a very competitive levelized capital costs compared to other technologies.He also pointed to a Shrinivasan paper that shows the deep water condenser OTEC design brings down the installed capital cost of a 100 MW plant ship from 4000$/kw to 2650$/kw, which is about by Paul Curto's 30%. Muralidharan also explains how the doubling of plant size leads to a cost/kW reduction of approximately 22%. Using CO2 as the working fluid allows for plants of gigawatt capacity or more, so extrapolating from his a 1 GW plant of the heat pipe design would cost $86*2650/4000*78/100*(1-(.22*(200/800))) or 42 $/MWh for the lowest levelized capital cost of all energy sources but for combined cycle natural gas. Considering this energy source reduces the threat of tropical storms, lowers sea level rise, cools surface ocean and atmosphere temperatures and produces water concurrently I can't see how we can not afford to go this route? Again thank you very much for your interest and input. Jim

Michael Hayes

Jun 2, 2015
04:33

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Jim, Can you expand upon your comment of "I have a problem with upwelling to produce biomass because of the CO2 issue but perhaps the bigger problem is the thermal stratification as is discussed here http://theenergycollective.com/jim-baird/184496/ocean-thermal-energy-conversion . Phytoplankton appear to be dieing off at an alarming rate due to thermal stratification that would be moderated by moving surface heat into the deep with heat pipes.". What exactly do your mean by "the CO2 issue"??? The up-welled CO2 is highly manageable and the captured CO2 utility factor (i.e. micro-algae biomass cultivation) is...the...most productive use of CO2 currently known. Also, concerning thermal stratification, properly designed marine biomass (micro-algae) chemosynthetic tank farms would cool the local surface water and thus would act as an active mitigation of thermal stratification and this cooling effect can cover 100s/1000s/10,000s of km2s of thermally critical waters. In marine critical thermal areas, this wide area surface cooling would have other significant/positive effects at multiple levels, such as: A)-reducing the growth of the "oligotrophic" regions http://www.pifsc.noaa.gov/media/news/polovinaetal_Feb08.php B)-no surface heat transferred into the sub-nutricline/thermocline regions as the tank farms act as high throughput water coolers and thus the advective flow imparts no thermal stress at any level. The massive amounts of heat energy collected by the cultivation tanks can be easily and benignly transmitted off planet via mid-infrared radiation. Please read: Harvesting renewable energy from Earth’s mid-infrared emissions (EEH) http://sjbyrnes.com/pub_PNAS_2014.pdf Transferring massive amounts of heat into the mesopelagic region seems problematic as the heated water will simply convect to the surface. Also, the mesopelagic fish population is just now becoming known and thus heating the mesopelagic region will probably raise many questions/reasons for vast scale deployment delays. Please read: "There really ARE more fish in the sea: Scientists find deep sea species untouched by fishing makes up 95% of all fish in the world" http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2572398/The-hidden-fish-make-95-marine-life.html#ixzz3bw3fcQ7Z C)-surface cooling/cultivation tank farms can be used in a highly focused/targeted method within critical thermal regions while producing vast volumes of marine biomass/C neg. fuel/food/feed/polymers/biochar and freshwater etc. New Marine Thermal Mapping https://ci5.googleusercontent.com/proxy/HClQTDduDhepR1PIsZt3uxnIBfBhv50SZ8vDPllT2ydmqo75_R3hronnobCFNa6zSUU-6rxiSmgg__kgMZLdN6u5oXqWbRKcYKu2aD6PmUD6UqU=s0-d-e1-ft#https://robertscribbler.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/image.jpg Jim, I've taken the time to read your Energy Collective comment page and the comments posted by you, Greg, Rodger etc. and I would like to draw the collective attention of your group to the overwhelming socioeconomic, environmental and policy benefits of: 1)marine biomass production in general due to need for critical commoditis such as food/feed/fertilizer/biofuel/biochar etc, 2)chemosynthetic cultivation in specific as this method offers the most controlled form of cultivation of biomass now known and the H2 used in the chemosynthetic method (oxyhydrogen reaction in micro-algae) sets up an (eventual) H2 based global energy supply and distribution system. 3)pumping the excess heat into space (via EEH) directly addresses the need for vast scale surface cooling in a way which does not 'shift' the energy to another critical biogeochemical system/region (i.e. mesopelagic). Your thoughts??? Michael

Jim Baird

Jun 3, 2015
01:26

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Michael The CO2 issue. Please have a look at the NOAA paper, "An Upwelling Crisis: Ocean Acidification" by Caitlyn Kennedy at https://www.climate.gov/news-features/features/upwelling-crisis-ocean-acidification . Half way through the article is a figure showing the relationship between depth and pH of the Pacific west coast. From the surface down to 220 meters the pH drops from 8.1 to 7.5. Since this is a logarithmic scale the water is about 4 times more acidic at 220 meters than on the surface and it is the upwelling of this water as the current hits the continental shelf that is impacting calcifying organism. Ocean acidity is dependent on the percentage of CO2 dissolved in the water, which in turn is dependent on the partial pressures from Henry’s law. As CO2 levels in the air increase, so too does the partial pressure. At the surface this is in equilibrium so since the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is 400 ppm the concentration in the water is about the same. The University of Hawaii has an article on this at http://cmore.soest.hawaii.edu/cruises/big_rapa/comments.htm which indicates ocean CO2 concentrations as high as 900 ppm have been measured and when these waters are upwelled 500 ppm are out gased to the atmosphere. As Greg Rau, has pointed out Natural upwelling of seawater releases massive quantities of CO2, >300 GT/y, 10x more than humans. Fortunately for us, that quantity and a little more is taken up by the ocean via bio, chemo, and physical processes, so the ocean is a net sink of CO2. All bets are off, however, If we start artificially lifting deep water and releasing in shallower water. So will be a big deal in oceanography circles if this can be avoided via closed cycle. With respect to thermal stratification, A NOAA study http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2010/20100519_ocean.html determined the average amount of energy the ocean absorbed each year over the period 1993 to 2008 was enough to power nearly 500 100-watt light bulbs for each of the roughly 6.7 billion people on the planet. This would be 330 TW or about 20 times the total primary energy consumed annually. To produce 14 TW of OTEC power, as Nihous says is about the maximum that can be produced without adverse environmental effect, you directly convert 14 TW thermal to electricity and move virtually all of the rest into the deep due to the low thermodynamic efficiency of the process. You can not get anywhere near that kind of benefit from biomass. Yet I submit decreasing thermal stratification with OTEC will improve biomass as well. Conventional OTEC would be so effective cooling the ocean, one of its drawbacks is seen as its potential to overturn the thermohaline circulation that is vital to the maintenance of the deep water heat sink required to produce energy in the OTEC heat engine. On account of this it has been calculated we can produce about 14 TW of OTEC power safely, which would be a direct conversion of heat to work and the movement of an additional 280 TW thermal to the ocean’s depths. You say transferring massive amounts of heat into the mesopelagic region seems problematic as the heated water will simply convect to the surface. The Rogers paper referred to in my previous response says the rate of upwelling is about 4 meters per year. http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2012AGUFM.A23A0182R . So in 250 years the heat will return but this will be 250 years in which the atmosphere will have had a chance to recover because you no longer are adding CO2. When that heat does return it will also be sent back down again and some of it will be converted to work again by the same OTEC process. As to heating the mesopelagic region, the oceans to a depth of 500 metres are currently warming by about 0.005 degrees a year and from 500-2000 meters by about 0.002 degree. Say you could reverse that with the system I propose so that it the mesopelagic zone is now warming by .005 degrees annually. I doubt that this would have any great impact on the fish there, whereas fish in the epipelagic zone, where you derive our sustenance, would benefit. And to further make the point these fish in some cases undergo seasonal temperature swings of 8 degrees Celsius or more annually. I am all for biomass production but remain of the opinion thermal stratification is the principle impediment. As to EEH it is an interesting proposition. Since radiative forcing is calculated in terms of watts/meter squared don't you have to dissipate heat to space the same way? That sounds like an offal lot rectifying antennas taking up an offal lot of space and what is the impact on winged creatures of all of that radiation? Microwaves already seem to be doing a pretty effective job on that front. The real kicker to me though is Richard Smalley figured 10 billion people by 2050 might need as much as 60 TW of power with a good chunk of that energy going towards desalination. As is the point of this submissions you get energy and water concurrently thus you don't need anywhere near as much energy and the waste heat that typically comes from most sources. Jim

Jim Baird

Jun 3, 2015
01:07

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"offal" - awful Sorry

Michael Hayes

Jun 5, 2015
03:32

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Jim, I'm not proposing open water up-welling. I'm proposing the up-welled water be fed into cultivation/chemosynthesis sealed tanks/pipelines. Thus, the concerns over increased acidification of surface water via up-welled water is moot. Further, you state: "You say transferring massive amounts of heat into the mesopelagic region seems problematic as the heated water will simply convect to the surface. The Rogers paper referred to in my previous response says the rate of upwelling is about 4 meters per year. http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2012AGUFM.A23A0182R . So in 250 years the heat will return but this will be 250 years in which the atmosphere will have had a chance to recover because you no longer are adding CO2. When that heat does return it will also be sent back down again and some of it will be converted to work again by the same OTEC process." The dynamics of micro/local scale (i.e. OTEC) convective activity is simply not comparative to macro scale up-welling. A typical OTEC design will create a localized up-welling. To effect the macro scale 'thermal stratification' problem set would require vast scale thermal energy transfer...to some where! As to EEH, your statement of "As to EEH it is an interesting proposition. Since radiative forcing is calculated in terms of watts/meter squared don't you have to dissipate heat to space the same way?" No. The EEH technology is not limited to the watts/meter squared equation. Jim, thanks for bringing up these points as I now see a need to explain a few of the key/basic aspects of the key/basic technologies. Michael

Jim Baird

Jun 6, 2015
09:56

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Michael, "To effect the macro scale 'thermal stratification' problem set would require vast scale thermal energy transfer...to some where!" Paul Curto points in his paper (http://www.opednews.com/articles/American-Energy-Policy-V--by-Paul-from-Potomac-101214-315.html ) "The surface layers of the ocean have relatively small volume, three orders of magnitude less, compared to that of the heat sink at depth. Therefore, OTEC's impact on reducing the surface water temperature over time will be much larger, on the order of one degree F per decade at this power level." (The level he was talking about is 2.5 terawatts of power which he estimated would remove 53 TW of surface heat). I think heat pipe efficiency can be greater, closer to 5 percent, thus you can produce more power yet still relocate the 330 TW of heat the NOAA researches estimated back in 2010 the ocean was accumulating to the some where else, which is the abyss, the greatest heat sink on the planet. Maybe I don't understand to what you are refering by the term EEH. I thought you meant emissive energy harvesting. This article http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/2014/mar/14/harvesting-the-earths-infrared-energywould says it broadly comparable to solar thermal and produces an average of 2.7 W/m2. If it is comparable to solar thermal it would require a lot of collectors and it is also not clear to me how you get the cold plate into space so it can radiate the heat. Or more precisely how you get heat to the plate so that it can do that? If you can cultivate biomass in a closed system, then I wish you the best luck. Jim

Stevie Harison

Jun 12, 2015
04:03

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Hello from Indonesia, Good luck for your project proposal. Just review and make it completed before meet deadline tomorrow. Thank you,

Michael Hayes

Jul 1, 2015
09:16

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Jim, Cultivating biomass in a closed...thermal...system is not problematic if chemosynthesis is used. Further, the 'abyss' biome is highly sensitive to thermal fluctuation. Heat should be extracted from that region not pumped into it. Good luck on the final round, Michael

Jim Baird

Jul 2, 2015
09:18

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Michael, ARGO floats have determined that between 500m and 2,000m the ocean has warmed by about 0.002 degrees Celsius per year since 2006 - 0.2 degrees Celsius per century. From the surface to 500m it warmed 0.005 degrees per year. OTEC first converts about 5 percent of this surface heat to productive work so this is energy no longer increasing the temperature of water at any depth. Second the heat moved to 1000m, even if it did raise the temperature .5 degrees over the next century this would do no great harm to the abyssal biome. It is doubtful however this would be the result because there is a further 3200 odd meters cold water into which some of this heat would further dissipate. Finally moving all of this heat would mean you are now no longer adding CO2 to the atmosphere and if you are electrolyzing sea water you are actually sequestering atmospheric CO2 so the forcing that is causing the surface heating in the first place is being dissipated. Good luck to you. Jim

Jim Baird

Jul 2, 2015
09:25

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Michael, ARGO floats have determined that between 500m and 2,000m the ocean has warmed by about 0.002 degrees Celsius per year since 2006 - 0.2 degrees Celsius per century. From the surface to 500m it warmed 0.005 degrees per year. OTEC first converts about 5 percent of this surface heat to productive work so this is energy no longer increasing the temperature of water at any depth. Second the heat moved to 1000m, even if it did raise the temperature .5 degrees over the next century this would do no great harm to the abyssal biome. It is doubtful however this would be the result because there is a further 3200 odd meters cold water into which some of this heat would further dissipate. Finally moving all of this heat would mean you are now no longer adding CO2 to the atmosphere and if you are electrolyzing sea water you are actually sequestering atmospheric CO2 so the forcing that is causing the surface heating in the first place is being dissipated. Good luck to you. Jim