Hawaii First to Harness Deep-Ocean Temperatures for Power
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Hawaii First to Harness Deep-Ocean Temperatures for Power
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Re: Hawaii First to Harness Deep-Ocean Temperatures for Power
#2Seems kinda pointless this only doubles the original pilot which was 50KW....
The plan was to build a 40-50MW plant within 3-5 years and expand it to 100MW+ over the following decade.
http://www.bizjournals.com/pacific/print-edition/2010/11/12/...
This tbh looks less like any type of commercialization but more of a consolation prize to LM since the Navy paid for the original pilot and was supposed to pay for the expansion but due to the drop in oil prices it never came off the ground.
Also the average household consumption in Hawaii is 2.3kW/h (gotta love air conditioning) so looks more like 40 houses with peaks averaging at almost double that.
BTW in comparison most commercial Gas Turbine power plants produce 400 MW per unit, or 600 if coupled with a traditional non-critical steam turbine which harness the excess heat.
Low power Gas Turbines small enough to fit in a sipping container which can be delivered by truck average at around 5MW, so this whole apparatus will produce produce 50 times less power than something that can be fit into a container, other unites like the TM2500 by GE which can be towed by a single truck can provide as much as 30MW of power. https://www.ge-distributedpower.com/products/power-generatio...
So besides catching some headlines and paying some dues to LM i really don't see this being any thing but a waste of money.
Re: Hawaii First to Harness Deep-Ocean Temperatures for Power
#3Seems kinda pointless this only doubles the original pilot which was 50KW.... The plan was to build a 40-50MW plant within 3-5 years and expand it to 100MW+ over the following decade. http://www.bizjournals.com/pacific/print-edition/2010/11/12/... This tbh looks less like any type of commercialization but more of a consolation prize to LM since the Navy paid for the original pilot and was supposed to pay for the expa…
It's a question of local vs global optimization. Do we only consider energy generation tech on its current path, or explore other possible paths to lower cost tech? It's unknown if some alternate energy tech could provide lower costs per KW unless they're explored. Even if prototypes cost more, one must try to at least imagine what the costs are at scale.
Beyond the direct costs there's also to cost of the new tech vs direct cost + external costs of current tech. One knows that burning natural gas has an externalities of adding carbon to the atmosphere.
Re: Hawaii First to Harness Deep-Ocean Temperatures for Power
#4I have to ask, but since so much of Hawaii's electricity production feeds air conditioners wouldn't it be more efficient to pipe this cold water into houses as coolant? Or to a datacenter?
Re: Hawaii First to Harness Deep-Ocean Temperatures for Power
#5Seems kinda pointless this only doubles the original pilot which was 50KW.... The plan was to build a 40-50MW plant within 3-5 years and expand it to 100MW+ over the following decade. http://www.bizjournals.com/pacific/print-edition/2010/11/12/... This tbh looks less like any type of commercialization but more of a consolation prize to LM since the Navy paid for the original pilot and was supposed to pay for the expa…
It's a question of local vs global optimization. Do we only consider energy generation tech on its current path, or explore other possible paths to lower cost tech? It's unknown if some alternate energy tech could provide lower costs per KW unless they're explored. Even if prototypes cost more, one must try to at least imagine what the costs are at scale. Beyond the direct costs there's also to cost of the new tech v…
Considering that LM and other companies are also building multi-MW installations in other regions like the 10MW installation that LM is building for China I'm not quite sure what the value of this project will be since it doesn't really being scaled up by any account.
Re: Hawaii First to Harness Deep-Ocean Temperatures for Power
#6Hawaii is a chain of seamount islands, so the deep ocean isn't far away. That's unusual. Continents have a continental shelf, and it's usually a longer pipe run to the deep ocean, which means the 4°C cold water warms up along the way, plus pumping costs are higher.
Solar works so well in Hawaii that the power company there is trying to stop it. Once batteries get a little cheaper, Hawaii will be mostly solar.
Re: Hawaii First to Harness Deep-Ocean Temperatures for Power
#7I have to ask, but since so much of Hawaii's electricity production feeds air conditioners wouldn't it be more efficient to pipe this cold water into houses as coolant? Or to a datacenter?
The temperature of the littoral water in Hawaii isn't cold enough (77f/25c during winter an 85f/28c during summer) for efficient transmittance cooling not to mention that salt water can't be used for evaporative cooling like the one being used by commercial AC units for fairly obvious reasons.
Re: Hawaii First to Harness Deep-Ocean Temperatures for Power
#8I have to ask, but since so much of Hawaii's electricity production feeds air conditioners wouldn't it be more efficient to pipe this cold water into houses as coolant? Or to a datacenter?
The temperature of the littoral water in Hawaii isn't cold enough (77f/25c during winter an 85f/28c during summer) for efficient transmittance cooling not to mention that salt water can't be used for evaporative cooling like the one being used by commercial AC units for fairly obvious reasons.
Is it hard to evaporate half of saltwater and dump the rest back?
Re: Hawaii First to Harness Deep-Ocean Temperatures for Power
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
The temperature of the littoral water in Hawaii isn't cold enough (77f/25c during winter an 85f/28c during summer) for efficient transmittance cooling not to mention that salt water can't be used for evaporative cooling like the one being used by commercial AC units for fairly obvious reasons.
Is it hard to evaporate half of saltwater and dump the rest back?
It does't work that way crystals will still form, and salts mean free ions free ions mean corrosion.....
Re: Hawaii First to Harness Deep-Ocean Temperatures for Power
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is it hard to evaporate half of saltwater and dump the rest back?
It does't work that way crystals will still form, and salts mean free ions free ions mean corrosion.....
If you evaporate half of seawater, you're still down at one quarter of salt's saturation level. That will form crystals even if you keep things mildly mixed?
Corrosion is a worry, but isn't that something you can fix with material choice?