Re: Vast new energy source almost here: Solar hydrogen fuel dream

From: Dave Gower (davegow.removethis_at_magma.ca)
Date: 08/28/04 

Date: Fri, 27 Aug 2004 22:16:27 -0400

"Dr. Jai Maharaj" <usenet@mantra.com> wrote

> Australian scientists predict that a revolutionary new
> way to harness the power of the sun to extract clean and
> almost unlimited energy supplies from water will be a
> reality within seven years.
>
> Using special titanium oxide ceramics that harvest
> sunlight and split water to produce hydrogen fuel

This isn't a new story, although that particular item may be recent. But
there's another way to convert solar energy into hydrogen, which is to use
the temperature difference between surface and deep water at the tropics,
and produce hydrogen. Since the amount of solar energy arriving each day
over tropical oceans vastly exceeds the world's energy use for the
foreseeable future, the potential is huge. The best part is that the ocean
acts as the collector, so you don't need huge solar arrays like you would
with this technology. In addition, the mixing of the water would increase
the amount of biological activity in a part of the ocean that's quite
sterile.

The downside is that one would have to maintain huge floating platforms,
which would need to be stabilized against wind and current to keep them out
of shipping lanes, from running aground etc. But not too difficult.

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