EmpowerTheOcean — New Website on Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC)
I’m proud to be a co-founder of a new website: EmpowerTheOcean, a repository for educational and inspirational content on ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC), a technology that provides great promise for the low-cost and eco-friendly provision of electricity to the approximately one billion of us who live near tropical oceans. I hope you’ll check it out and contribute your own thoughts – recognizing that it is, for now at least, brand new. Consider yourself a pioneer!
Craig: I know that OTEC is a great technology; we are all seeing the effects of ocean warming and it’s climate ties. I have researche renewable energy now for more than 35 years, and have developed technologies to exploit the energy from the oceans and winds. As far as I know, even deep ocean currents work because of the temperature differences and density differences in the ocean bodies, combined with earth’s rotation they combine into a very complex system that needs to be understood, but I think that extrating the heat from the waters to generate electricity or other useful energy products is a great way to use this free energy. I think that OTEC should be combined with offshore wind, wave power, and even other industrial uses of the ocean, and also, research. Combining technolgies we can reduce capital return and have a better business opportunity for all these projects.