How to use the ocean as a giant battery
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- čas přidán 22. 05. 2024
- There is a way to harvest energy 24/7 from our oceans, through a technology called ocean thermal energy conversion. It would help provide reliable renewable energy, especially for vulnerable islands in tropical regions. The basic technology has been around for hundreds of years already. So, why hasn't it caught on?
#PlanetA #OceanThermalEnergy #RenewableEnergy
Credits:
Reporter: Kai Steinecke
Camera: Florian Kroker
Video Editor: Philippe Gnannt
Supervising Editors: Michael Trobridge, Kiyo Dörrer
Interviewees:
Hermann Kuegler, Makai Ocean Engineering
Benjamin Martin, Ocean Thermal Energy Association
Dan Grech, Global OTEC
Read more:
Overview of current technology:
tethys.pnnl.gov/sites/default...
History of OTEC:
eos.org/features/the-century-...
The economics of OTEC:
www.sciencedirect.com/science...
Effects of large-scale implementation of OTEC:
www.mdpi.com/2077-1312/6/1/12...
Chapters:
00:00 Intro
00:24 What is OTEC?
02:41 It's tricky...
05:36 OTEC for islands
06:55 A massive bill
09:00 Conclusion
They haven't cracked the code yet, but the energy is out there. Solar, Wind, Geothermal, Hydro, and now this, and thats not to mention better fission, fusion, or space based solar. All of these energy technologies are sustainable and have people working to improve them. The future is energy abundance.
Just the cost of putting solar in space alone means that this will NEVER be used for grid energy. It's beyond INSANE and merely the plaything of crazed fanboy uber techno-futurists.
Yeah it all comes down to red tape and politics, if we just subsidized this tech the same way we subsidie big oil we would be free of its shackles already
In case you want to learn more about the benefits of OTEC, we talk about our TOP 3 in this video: czcams.com/video/z8e01CM2hQ4/video.html&t
This could cause destruction if it is done on a large scale. Heat exchangers will alter the temperature of the ocean at various depths, which could kill sea life that depend on a fixed temperature.
it depends on the amount of heat pushed down, it"s likely that the water we'd push back down would be just a few tenth of a degree hotter, so we should be fine for a few centuries
@@danaus2024 kicking the issue down for later generations aren't a fix, neither should it be done, the issue is overpopulation and consuming resources faster than the planet can recover.
The heat with that amount of water will be far more than a few tenths of a degree. Plus you are cycling deep water back onto the surface with all the stuff that's in it. Think about grabbing all the cold air from the arctic and dumping it in the Sahara desert. You'll change things.
That could really work for the small towns in the Arctic Archipelago, especially during the darkness of winter. The temperature difference between surface (air) and the ocean could be as much as 60° C, although 25° would be more typical. Of course, the working fluid would be different, but that's just an engineering problem. During the summer, they just have 24 hours of sunlight, so solar PV.
My concern would be that on a large scale the natural temperature differentials of the ocean could be eroded which would in turn affect the churn, the capacity to generate and/or attract food sources and in turn the survival of larger species. We meddle with nature at our peril!
Nobody wants to listen. Science (and technology together with human greed) is trying to solve problems it has created before.
Couldn't this have environmental cobsequences since you're basically evening out the normal ocean temperature gradient? I imagine ocean life relies on this temperature gradient in some way
they don't care about the normal ocean temperature gradient. Humans are all about just complete exploitation.
Yes it can definitely have environmental consequences that need to be further investigated. In the "read more" section there are articles linked to find out more about these.
This is really cool and super hopeful! I’m confident it’ll be figured out!
It's very interesting to learn about these various technologies, thank you!
If they wanted they could also use these plants to pump out a bit of cold water to the surface when surface temperatures get too hot, it will reduce productivity but it will save local wildlife in the process (also if the heat is too abnormal it can damage the system by over expanding the gas)
As I think about it, ice melt basically drives such engines. Pulling the cold water up will create a displacement that (very gradually) warms the layer the water is being pulled from. This heat is only removed by ice melt displacing the warmer water. In the meantime the surface water is cooled, enabling it to absorb more heat energy from the sun and air currents.
@@alanhat5252 good point. I thought about the ice melt because it was more fun to think about at the time.
The other problem is if this is done on a large scale, it could change ocean currents as many of them depend on the heat differential to flow.
From what I understood, all you need is the warm surface water to heat a low-boiling point liquid which turns generators. Would you necessarily need a cold water pipe to go kilometers down into the ocean if you can just produce energy from the surface water? Couldn't you dump that water back and make energy that way? Would it even need to be off-shore if you can access the warmer water from shore?
Really enjoy the content!
I wonder how this would negatively effect the deep sea ecosystems temprature wise. Warm water from after the industrial revolution is already reaching the deep sea causing huge damage.
The warmer water would be discharged at the surface
@@NordicWizzard Yes but the cold deep sea water needs to be replaced by warmer water from the upper layers. I wonder if this might disturb the otherwise extremely slow water exchange processes in the deep sea areas around those facilities.
I wonder how does this compare to geothermal. It's the same concept but with added complications. it'd only make sense if it's significantly cheaper but a quick search on levelised cost of energy for this yields no results
With a low temperature differential it's difficult to extract meaningful amounts of energy. Sounds fine in theory, in practice it's entirely another matter. I've only heard of one site in Hawaii doing this and its been really quiet. I assume that means there's nothing much to report.
It's too early for levelised cost of energy formulas. You'd basically need a research plant the size of an oil rigg to find out the practical limits of this tech.
It's easy to invest in an oil rigg, because you can calculate how much oil it can pull out of the ocean floor.
But 1 research station with unknown returns.. that's harder
I use this form of energy to feed my unicorns at my elf farm.
We appear to have no trouble reaching down over 2000m into the ocean if it is for oil so I am pretty sure that we can find a way of doing it for a resource that doesn't run out!
their pipes are much smaller and cheaper and the fuel is easy to ship
@@tomkelly8827The point is that we weren't always able to do that stuff. In fact, on the scale of 2000m water depth and 10000m holes, it's pretty recent.
thanks for the content!
Thanks for your feedback! Be sure to follow our channel for more solution-oriented videos like this one 🙃
Using the kinetic power of the ocean seems more likely to work.
Offshore hydropower. Find places with a strong,steady current a place some type of turbine there
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THANK YOU❤
It is cool too see natures potential.
Super cool! Also Kai I love your voice!
+1
Great Video!!
Hey there! Glad you like our video. We post new videos like this one every Friday, so feel free to subscribe to not miss any ✨
I'm not sure what negative impact will pumping hot water to the seabed make though. It's already very bad with the corals...
I love the host's energy 🙌🏼
Interesting.. I hate his energy, he's like a kids TV host
@@gaggleweed I do too. He seems to be substituting knowledge for enthusiasm. If we connect him to a generator maybe he can provide more energy than this technology.
So nothing will happen if we disturb the "normal" temperature gradient?
OTEC seems a reliable source of energy for some smaller countries. However I'm afraid the limits are in the transportation of power over longer distances. It seems also quite expensive in cost and maintenance.
Amazing video
Nice AV aides in explaining this process. If money was not a barrier, we could be totally green right now ;-)
Australia is investing $380 billion in submarines, imagine what that money could have done for OTEC
with some serious effort, it might be possible. However, as we have a lot of much easier accessible power like wind and solar, but also tidal and underwater current, I don't see this entering the market very soon.
It would be relatively easy to retrofit this onto existing oil and gas platforms surely? Gulf of Mexico springs to mind for the warm water and deep sea. And the platforms already have the pipes, or if they are too dirty, the equipment is there to run new ones
Wow, such a simple process, it's shocking this renewable energy process isn't more popular....
It is highly inefficient. See Carnot efficiency.
Why not submerge the plant below the wave action and draw warm water down while drawing cool water up? The plant now needs to be watertight, which is a cost, but it should be less susceptible to damage due to storms. Would submerging 50-100 ft avoid most of the storm risk? Only the warm water intake would be at risk and it is much shorter. Please keep in mind I know nothing about ocean engineering.
I cant belive oil rigs arnt already using this tech.
We have oil rigs in norway that goes 1000s of feet below the surface
Will those pipes suck fish into them?
And does it change the temperature of the local water?
I mean, it would be great if it takes 'heat' out of the seawater in areas like Florida, which are so warm they are no longer safe for pregnant women and children under 5 years - but will it 'shock' other areas where sea life might be a bit more sensitive to temperature change?
I guess fish can be kept away with a net
Tropical regions might seem like the right choice, but solar pv is relatively reliable, super cheap, and hyper scalable. The fact it requires sunlight is a disadvantage, but OTEC is highly unlikely ever going to be anywhere near as cheap as solar plus all the batteries you need to have power on demand whenever you want it in tropical areas. A combination of solar PV, CSP with storage and wind is a reasonable option if you have the money to invest that OTEC requires.
Needing absurd infrastructure is a huge problem, but also having to force that water all that way cost energy. A cubic meter of water at 4 °C is roughly 3 kg heavier than a cubic meter of water at 26 °C all else equal. That means you have to invest almost 30 kJ to lift a cubic meter of 4 °C from 1000 meters depth to the surface, when the surface is 26 °C, assuming it's close to surface temperature most of the way, and all else equal. In reality probably around 20 kJ/m³ just because the difference in density. That's on top of friction and other losses in the system.
It's easy to calculate how much energy that theoretically could be extracted. The amount of energy available is roughly 4.18 MJ per °C per ton, 26 °C is almost 300 K, 4 °C is 22 K lower, which means the theoretical limit for efficiency is ~7.3% which means roughly 300 kJ at 100% efficient system. But low temperature difference doesn't just make the efficiency limit very low, it also makes it difficult to reach anywhere near that limit at relevant rate, and 26 °C is not a reasonable average. Achieving more than symbolic net generation is challenging in reality, making it an viable practical option that is far beyond challenging.
Great stuff!
More from Kai, please~
If OTEC becomes a reality on a big scale, it can work as the base load, which is currently done either by nuclear or gas or coal in the majority of the places. Additionally, as we are building these plants in the ocean, it won't be having aby major impact on the wqter ecosystem, unlike hydropower, which uses rivers and hence, inpact the ecosystem
The other system that can be used for base load can be tidal energy, which works during both the high tide and low tide
there is a simpler technique using haematite and you dont have to go 2km deep you can do it very close to the surface utilization of the movement of water around tge electrodes
why not use a simple cooler with fans or some cooling liquid to cool the water down on the surface, wouldnt that be much more efficient than pumping up water for 2km?
OTEC can maintain pre-industrial climate conditions by reducing ocean surface temperature so that more heat can be absorbed from the atmosphere.
This can reduce the intensity of hurricanes, heat waves, and coral bleaching by converting ocean surface heat into clean electricity. We should use OTEC to maintain pre-industrial climate conditions until the climate can be restored to its pre-industrial state by removing CO2 from the atmosphere after net zero emissions have been reached.
OTEC is crucial is we actually want to fix climate change.
I wonder if natural currents could be employed to help to "pump" the cold water up from the depths. Some specific location where hotter and colder currents meet. Surely there are some really sweet spots out there in the tropics where this would work really well almost naturally. Perhaps if the pipe needs to be that big, it could be made on site from raw materials. Shipping pipes around is moving a lot of empty space. the bigger the pipe, the worse the problem. So why not have a ship that goes around building the pipes in situ?
Hey. 🐟 Pipes used to lift groundwater to a heat exchanger must be built over 2 kilometres long and the efficiency of OTEC depends on minimising heat losses along the length of the pipe. OTEC is also so exciting because this technology could be used to generate electricity around the clock. The construction of the pipeline may be the most difficult part of the process, so this in itself is a huge technological challenge.
Why is water moved? I thought the heating fluid just goes around in a circle.
So like a more efficient Sterling engine?
I wonder, rather than ingest and expel large amounts of water and changing the thermal dynamics of the ocean in a localized area, a closed loop system may work better. A floating or shallow sub surface mat filled with a liquid that absorbs heat from the ocean surface passing through the heat exchanger and dropping down into deeper water where it cools and recycles back up. Although now that i think about it, that may not be a big enough temperature differential to generate electricity. Too volatile a liquid and it can't push a turbine. Its a beastly problem
7:33 a pipe 4x the size of a commercially available one… or just four pipes…
Interesting
Thought: the ocean is too hot and the cold water pipes aren't feasible but what if we cut out that part of it? Use the excess heat of the water to create the steam which turns turbines as it goes up and as it goes down and cools via that loss of energy and then return the now cooler ocean water. If it's set up to orientate where it's taking into account ocean currents you'd need a much shorter discharge pipe. Might not produce as much electricity but could be offset by it being more affordable? Not any kinda expert on any of this so I'm just thinking it through 🤷🏻♀️
The problem is the heat difference between the ocean and the air temperature isn't enough to generate a significant amount of electricity.
@@lmahmud what's a significant amount? Honest question, I want to understand this
If this does only works around the equator, how does investing in one of these plans make more sense than a solar (+battery) plant. Even if prices drop..... I seems less profitable, more risky and lower revenue since more moving parts/ maintenance. Not even considering the usage of large volumes of ammonia in the middle of the ocean
Sounds like a deep sea water warming device.
And we will have the following news: Record High Sea Water Temperature recorded at xxx.
Which sounds familiar. Wait it was just last month.
If this is in the tropics, it’s going to be hot. Why not just settle for cold water for ac since that’s going to be the biggest electrity use
Even the Carnot efficiency for such an operation seems terrible? Why wouldn't one lower the bar significantly and start with using this cold deepseawater for urban airconditioning?
I had the same idea, like district heating but for cooling.
District cooling seems to be the future way off not adding to the hot 🔥 problem. We talked about this in one of our latest videos 👉 czcams.com/video/sKbEOMCsqaI/video.html.
Also, have you heard of this deep sea water district cooling in Curacao? c2e2.unepccc.org/kms_object/district-energy-a-case-study-of-zakito-deep-sea-water-district-cooling-in-curacao-webinar-30-09-2022/#:~:text=It%20uses%20seawater%20from%20850m,at%20a%20much%20cheaper%20cost.
@@DWPlanetA Thx, there's also the case of a planned floating city in the Maledives where they obviously would also apply this type of system. Not sure whether they need an expensive heat exchanger to avoid having to deal with salt water in this district cooling (or whether their heat pump can handle salt water).
why doesnt the oil rig technology work for this?
Interesting, so weird that no author brought this to sci-fi, or at least not that I encountered.
If my memory serves me right, this is how the submarine was powered in Jules Verne's "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea"... published in 1870...
except it worked much faster and didn't move water just used the temperature differential somehow.
I'm confused. Why is there so much water being moved? I thought it was a closed system of Ammonia. Send it down to get cold, and then back up to capture the heat for a turbine.
The ammonia is only the working fluid, and it is contained in the plant. The water is the heat source and the heat dump. But it is vital for the environment that no ammonia leaks out of the plant.
@@philipyoung7034 I get that. What I don't get is why would it be moving water around. Isn't it just sending the ammonia (in the pipes) down to the cold, and then back up to reheat it.
@@PaulADAigle I get that, too. It would make more sense to use a non-corrosive material in the pipes. Five kilometres of ammonia would be cost prohibitive given the alternative of just pumping sea water. It is stated that sea water is moved through the heat exchanger, which is why it needs to be made of a stainless material like titanium. The heat exchanger is also the most expensive component of the "battery".
Instead of increasing the diameter of the plastic pipe, just bunch up more pipes until you get the the flow required 🤔
use the old infrastructure that oil companies used?
Wow and they thought wave power was complicated
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In effect, this transports heat to ocean strata 1000 m below. If we have learned one thing over the past decennia: Never be fascinated by a new gadget, do the maths first!
How then would the production of energy in any relevant quantity affect the temperature in the deep - and this in turn the aquatic wildlife as well as ocean currents?
On the Big Island of Hawaii, an OTEC facility has been in place for decades. I never heard of any success from it, any practical application, so skepticism is called for.
Yea, thats a smart idea. Heating up bottom Ocean water as well. If that wouldn't harm the environment more... SmH. To every video like this, the only solution to the energy problem (if it really is one) is using less energy.
2. law of thermodynamics go brrrr in the first 10 sec ….. 🙃
📍5:26
The planet is constantly moving around. How to use the planet movement itself to create energy?
Hey! 🌞
There are a few ways we can tap into this movement indirectly, please check out our videos on these here 👇
📺 On tidal energy:
czcams.com/video/1-2TyKqP84o/video.html
📺 On geothermal energy:
czcams.com/video/c7dy0hUZ9xI/video.html
📺 On wave energy:
czcams.com/video/UUlA5WKDiww/video.html
⚡️
'every Friday'... Well, not really every Friday, most Fridays, but definitely not every Friday.
I just made a couple of calculations based on the 2.2 billion kg of cold water per day. Transforming that into a m3/h flowrate, it is possible to calculate the energy required for the pumps to bring the water from 2 km down up to the surface. At a conservative calculation, that requires the pumps to use 763 MW of energy every hour. So, anything less than that on the production side is useless. And this is not counting the enormous damage to the sea life there (and people complain about sea water desalination plants) or the impact on the dynamics of the seas (the thermohaline circulation). Seems to me complete BS. The physics make it likely useless or, at best, a fringe case.
Stop turning on the closed captions!!
Good concept but far from feasible, at least for now. Tapping into wave energy makes more sense.
Hey! 🌊 If you think so, please check out our piece on wave power here 👇czcams.com/video/UUlA5WKDiww/video.html.
please make an episode about Japan's releasing radioactive water into ocean
why not cold ground water(55 fah) and sun-heated surface water(up to 110-125 fah or hotter mirror heated)
im watching this as im eating 7//11 spicy indian wings.
It's unreal. Can you better power the whole Iberian peninsula by Moroccan solar panels in Sahara?
and New Zealand is missing on the map yet again...
If I had have a dollar every time I listen this 2:10 👀
If we wanted we could have done this 30years ago..
Only when big oil gives the go ahead 😉😉
Environmental impact: OTEC plants can have a negative impact on the environment. The plants can release brine, which is salty water, into the ocean. This can disrupt the marine ecosystem. OTEC plants can also release greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide and methane.
Sorry, what‽ It's a heat exchanger. It's all electric. It's not a desalination plant. Where is the brine coming from? Where is the carbon dioxide? As mentioned in the comment above, (@danaus2024) the return water is only a fraction of a degree warm, so dissolved gasses in the deep water would stay dissolved.
The temperature difference which these propose OTEC plants exploits is also one of the main energy sources that power the Thermohaline circulation of the ocean currents, and tapping this energy off means (via the first law of thermodynamics) putting a brake on these currents which can cause additional climate changes, just like the gulf stream and ENSO already do.
I don’t think it’s a good idea to be accelerating the warming of our oceans, an already increasingly serious problem...
(As I imagine the now cooler top layer, as a result of the heat exchange, will now be able to absorb more solar)
Help me out, does this mechanism post turbine pump warm/hot ammonia back into the ocean/body of water, to what depth. So it is adding heat to directly to ocean thus altering temp, chemistry and physical properties instantaneously. Scaled up consider that affect is not part of and never has been the ocean cycle. Another dangle a carrot, out of sight out of our minds. Look squirrel.
Very good questions. 💧 This process does not in itself add heat to the ocean, but extracts heat from the surface water and converts it into energy. Nevertheless, OTEC changes the temperature gradient in certain areas, and there are other environmental impacts that can occur when large masses of water are moved through the ocean.
So solar energy and thermal energy storage but very inefficient... Ever heard of things like liquid salt energy storage?
Previously we made a video "How salt and sand could replace lithium batteries" you may wanna check out here 👉 czcams.com/video/-vobMl5ldOs/video.html. Let us know what you think in the comments! 🌸
@@DWPlanetA Thanks for the tip. I just kind of dislike people "inventing" things that already exist in a way more efficient form.
Well this is not really a how to if we don't know how to actually make this work.
So instead of buying Twitter, Elon could have built ~40 of those things.
Good thing he bought Twitter.
Could we not do the same with geothermally heated water and seawater?
Or even solar heated water?
I think if the oil and gas companies tried to venture into this then the problems with the pipes could be overcome. But what the resulting cost would be is probably to high to be commercially viable.
And as always.... The places with lots of energy on this planet is naturally not the place humans thrive. There is lots of capacity for solar in the desert areas around the equator. But thats not really where energy is needed
It sounds intriguing, but given how complex OTEC technology itself is and how much more development it requires, perhaps alternative heat sources would not be the first option to combine it with, at least not yet? In about 5:52 minutes to the video, Dan Grech from Global OTEC explains where the potential of the technology and the need for new energy sources meet for example. 🌱
@@DWPlanetA
As a lot of the video focuses on the problems with the cold water pipe. Alternative sources of which does not require this pipe would sound reasonable.
I would assume you just need a temperature difference (geothermal hot water, surface water as cold).
Or is the temperatures differences in the water somehow in a "sweet spot" for this concept?
Perhaps.. if all our energy needs were sated from the oceans... we'd take enough to stop the energy transfer into the air, which is what is creating more and more catastrophes...
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This is totally infeasible. One would need to continually move the platform to maintain a significant temperature difference. It would be better to use a Stirling engine floating on water, using the minuscule difference between water and air temperature.
to destroy the already destructed!
Sooo climate change already alters water temperatures and now we want to add to that?
🌊☀If you want to learn more about OTEC, we have a playlist just about that on our channel: czcams.com/play/PL1QhbHdkaEWFJOcX9FPps9rMo-epXmDP2.html&si=KJ-3JsJZO-9-9zu2
MR.ANTZ ~ ANTZism
Well, it's NOT renewable. But then, neither are strictly wind, wave, and even geothermal energies.
Anyways, as others mentioned, without sufficient consideration of short and long term consequences, this video is somewhat lacking
If you disregard practical and financial hurdles, it's fiction.
too bad energy cant be transferred wirelessly.
deep offshore energy is nice and all but we humans live on land. what good is all that abundance if its cost prohibitavely expensive due to the infrastructure needed to bring it back on land.
i mean if only optical fibers could be used for electricity. just think. a thin stand of fiber could hold kilos, mega, and giga and maybe even terra watts worth of electricity.
then the costs associated with thick cables going long distances could at least bypass one of the dimensions of wiring.
we cant remove length cuz wireless electricty isnt real. we cant remove width cuz thin wires dont carry heavy loads of electricity. height/depth is based on the structure so thats not a dimesion to worry about too much.
but yeah, even if off land power was a thing, it would AT LEAST need to be converted/stored to bypass the wiring factor then boats could bring those batteries back.
which has even greater losses due to a conversion from ocean to battery then from battery then to grid
If Elon Musk's brain is more obsessed with actual tech instead of hyperloops, Mars colonization and X, these kinda tech would have been viable quicker. Just need the investment of the world's top billionaires at a fraction of their wealth
If the end result is cold water as a bi product then that's great news! If its hot water then forget it!! Your video didn't explain the finer details sadly.
The end by-product is cold water in large quantities. 💧 Also this can have environmental and ecological impacts that would need still more studying for sure!
"All the studies estimate that if you disregard practical and financial hurdles, OTEC could power the entire world"
Is this an informative statement or is it attention grabbing? Hypothetically, one could say the same about all the other power sources (wind, solar, geothermal, fission, fusion, etc.). The problem is _always_ in the practical and financial hurdles.
Nice video and thanks for sharing, but use of such language can be misleading 🙏
forcing higher temperature to lower ocean is not good for the environment, and it's not unlimited power, it will eventually run out, the problem with all the issues are overpopulation, bandaids don't actually fix any of the issues we currently other than kicking the issue down for later generations.
Yelling!!!!!😊
I knew this since third grade lol 😆 this is not new
DW should make more videos like this instead of Pro-climate change Malthusian propaganda.