Re: Solar breakthrough - when?

From: Tkalbfus1 (tkalbfus1_at_aol.com)
Date: 08/21/04 

Date: 21 Aug 2004 12:22:57 GMT

>Remember also that you have to exchange a hell of a lot more heat than
>you are recovering as energy.
>Maybe FIFTY TIMES more.
>

There is alot of ocean out there. The specific heat of water is 1 cal/cc so
there is 100 calories to change 1 liter of water 1 degree centigrade. If what
you say is true then you can extract 2 calories worth of energy for every liter
of water that is in play.There are 1,000 liters in a cubic meter of water. 3
miles is 4.8 km. So a column of water 1 square meter at its base has 4,800
cubic meters of water in it or 4,800,000 liters of water. 4,800,000 liters x
100 cal x 28 c / 50 = 268,800,000 calories which is equivalent to 268,800,000
Joules of energy. Since there is movement of ocean water, we can assume that
collumn of water will replace itself with adjacent columns of water and we can
generate 268.8 Megawatts of energy with an OTEC heat exchanger that is 4.8 km
or 3 miles deep, this requires about 6 miles of pipeline. Is this enough power
for you. No matter how long this OTEC plant runs, the Ocean will always absorb
heat at a rate faster than the heat potential is extracted by the OTEC. OTECs
may be inefficient, but then the Oceans have a lot of heat to extract so it
makes little difference so long as the heat exchanger is affordable and it
never needs refueling, unlike fossil fuel plants.

Tom

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