Sea Power

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Two years ago, I wrote about innovative processes to harness the power from the sea.  Something we all should be doing.  Siemens has convinced Ireland to use tidal currents- and Alstom is trying the same approach.  Since China has more than 10,000 miles of coastline, it’s not surprising that it’s joining the fray, too.

One of the biggest (in size) concepts is to use “tidal power walls”.  These units (Atlantis Resources) let marine life pass through safely (at least it so looks now), but otherwise harness the power of the tidal pulls to generate more energy than nuclear reactors- but about at the same capital costs.  If their $ 3 million prototype works, it will produce energy at lower cost than the offshore wind farms.   The goal is to convert from the prototype to a the full scale unit that will generate some 8000 Megawatts of electricity- at an operating cost of about 10 to 15  centers per kilowatt-hour.

Tidal Energy

Basically, the device consists of a wall perpendicular (at a 90 degree angle) to the coast line, which branches into a T.   Inside the wall are turbines that are forced to rotate by the power of the tides.  Even if the prototype works as expected, the full-scale unit is not expected to come on line for another decade or so.

Lockheed Martin is promoting another concept. It is using a thermal-energy conversion unit to generate power.  Their prototype, which is sized at 10 megawatts, employs the surface water (warmer) to heat ammonia (which has a low boiling point), which is used to produce steam to drive a carbon-free emission turbine.

Thermal Energy

The steam is condensed (converted back to liquid) using the deeper water (which is colder) to close the cycle loop. The energy costs for this device are expected to also be about 15 cents a kilowatt hour.  (This is higher than nuclear power, but lower than the off-shore wind turbines.)

So, why is the US not also actively trying to harness the power of the sea?

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