OTEC research.
We hired an elite master’s Engineer (now a shareholder) to help study OTEC and heat exchange. With his help we were able to make detailed observations about the cost of an OTEC unit. The results were surprising and promising. Despite the reputation of OTEC we found that OTEC heat exchangers and turbomachinery are excitingly affordable. That New-otec could power the world is not unrealistic due to cost.
We created an ‘OTEC calculator’ with all the most important variables including ammonia quantity and net power output. We are now able to create a detailed and accurate picture of the outputs and physical requirements of an OTEC unit of any size. We can even know the width of the heat exchanger for a given tube diameter and heat exchanger (HX) duty, and how much energy will be lost pumping fluids, and the temperature of the wastewater in seconds.
Location.
The locations where OTEC can work are breath-taking. Many famously beautiful, and exotic locations can use the technology. Many of the poorest countries on Earth can use the technology and many of the world’s most energy stressed locations can too. OTEC is in range of every continent including Eurasia, Africa, India, and the Americas.
The only apparent loser is Europe, but that too is in range of long-range transmission.
The picture created is one of massive fortune changes in developing countries and low-cost energy for all.
A drawback is that most continents are 40km or more away from at least one of, deep-water, warm water, when it comes to small scale developments.
Smaller scale plants are generally limited to tropical islands, though there are some notable exceptions.
There are one or two sites in Africa and on the American continent where the deep water is close enough to shore for small scale developments.
New-otec and small scale.
Thanks to the software and the innovation we found that we could head straight to selling OTEC units. Unlike wind turbines or solar there is no development pathway to cost effective New-otec. Even on a small scale, New-otec units are worth buying.
Earthquakes.
If there really was a reason use of pipe is genuinely unwise many a tropical island is seismically active enough to rupture a pipe.
Additional Waste heat and renewable heat.
We found that additional waste heat can be added to the system with additional heat exchanger surface and that this addition of extra heat can boost net power tremendously.
Because the warm surface water is abundant, most if not all the power required to fully vaporise the working fluid can be renewable. Additional waste heat must not do the bulk of the work required to vaporise the ammonia as that is already done, instead it raises the temperature and pressure of the ammonia, and this can increase the net power potential of the additional heat dramatically and the plant capital cost per Kw can drop.
A new start for failed and controversial technology?
The improvement in ‘fuel efficiency’ can mean that failed or controversial sources of power such as natural gas, biomass and solar-hot-water can be much more cost effective and therefore viable because they do not need to account for ‘the bulk’ of the phase change.
There might be no better way to use dirty fuels for heat and power because this is such an efficient process. The extra heat and pressure mean that OTEC can certainly work cost effectively in many more locations.
New-otec outside of the tropics!
Sites outside the Tropics are viable for NEW-OTEC power generation all year round. Of course, this approach would not better doing the same thing within the tropics nor improve on the clean profile of natural OTEC, but it would enable use of the same/ similar technology and for much less of the additional heat source to be used than it may otherwise have been. A supply of cold water is still required but this source of cold water is abundant and close to shore off the coasts of many countries including the USA and Europe.
Good news for energy security.
If carbon emitting fuels are not required to provide the heat for phase change, then they provide more net power per Kg used. This means more net power for less fuel, and that means reserves of fuel can last much longer. Much, much longer, hundreds of years longer in some cases.
Waste Biomass.
The latent heat phenomenon might also mean that waste US. crop biomass could in principle, provide enough power for the whole of the US.. More research is required to find exactly how much waste biomass there is and for further sources of information to be consulted.
Use of multi, low-, and higher-grade heat sources.
Depending on the arrangement of the heat exchanger, (hx) more than one heat source can be used.
Lower plant sizes.
In being more productive per kg of water delivered, the diameter of the hoses and the quantity of water required can drop per net kw output; this can of course mean lower start-up capital costs, albeit with at least one source of additional heat.
New-otec and clean industry.
NEW-OTEC can serve industry like no other renewable energy source. Waste heat, process heat, cooling heat, all of these could be used to further lower plant costs and improve the economy of the plant. An industrial world without fossil fuels looks very possible.
Use of waste heat means never before seen efficiencies and lower initial capital costs.
Waste heat from motors and inverters can be used.
Given the working fluid is coming from 12 degrees of so, in the case of the new-otec orc system, the heat from the motors and inverters of the system can be used.
What a wonderful irony of low-grade heat! Perhaps the most efficient heat engine in the world is possible. We have now tailored our software to accommodate this possibility.
Vapor Quality.
Recently, we also found that vapor quality deteriorates with increasing heat and that the low-grade heat vapor quality is better than higher temperature vapor quality. As the temperature goes up, more and more heat is totally wasted. Therefore, there is a limit to how much heat should be added so going wild with extra heat is not the best approach. Some extra heat is certainly worth considering especially where seawater temperatures are not as high as they are at the equator.
Carbon capture.
What is all this about dirty fuels? Cumulative research can show that carbon capture is more feasible with NEW-OTEC than it is with any other method of producing dirty power. An equivalent of deep water CAES may also be quite possible. Co2 is a liquid at OTEC deep-water depths.
Of course, the use of dirty fuels is controversial, but the New-otec usp’s can improve how dirty fuels are used and may provide an answer to how Co2 can be stored.
Co2 as a commodity.
Stored Co2 can be stored and reused, during Covid, Co2 was worth a fortune due to reduced international availability.
Co2 Sequestration.
One of the most interesting aspects of deep-sea-cold-water technology is the potential to offset Co2 through plankton blooms.
Just one litre per second of cold water released for one year can have the same effect as one tree for one hundred years. Sites that can use deep-sea-cold-water can become sites for offsetting Co2. This activity has the potential to generate income and reduce the running costs for the user.
New-otec and clean industry revisited.
Clean electricity and carbon capture where required means clean metal, clean plastic, clean (neutral) methane, clean ammonia. The waste heat being directly useful without having to provide heat for a phase change. For many countries this could mean independence from foreign imports and the associated controversy. Other renewables for example, Pv could source clean silicon via clean new-otec powered plants. Carbon fibre and steel for wind turbines could come from clean new-otec plants too.
The carbon and Co2 conclusion?
Though initially disinterested, point of fact does make a case for external sources of heat even if they produce Co2. Now if you consider that they would be used or decompose anyway, then there is a stronger case as the dirty fuel would last much longer if coupled with a new-otec system. That Co2 can be stored in the deep-sea as a liquid is fascinating, and also potentially very valuable for both climate change, and business.
New-otec inside the tropics is still best. There is little case for carbon heat in the tropics, but there are a few, lower plant costs, and Co2 is a commodity if stored; all sorts of common and essential things need Co2 if they are to be produced.
The closer the equator edge and beyond, the more interesting the prospect of carbon fuel becomes. Use of external fuel means that New-otec can work in Europe, and presently that means freedom from Russian gas.
Since deep-water can also offset Co2, and Co2 can be stored, the process can be carbon negative.
What can be achieved here needs to be considered carefully, and with all the facts, but one thing is for sure, the use of fossil fuels for industry without new-otec is ridiculous.
What about solar hot water?
Ah! Solar hot water without the phase change duty! When no Co2 is required and sites are remote this is presumably the best choice for boosting heat. No recurring fuel cost! No imports and no carbon stock. Molten salt or hot water could be stored for overnight power if necessary, and a combination of carbon fuel and solar hot water is possible too. Obviously, solar hot water can easily reach 30 or 50 degrees centigrade, the temperature required to halve the plant cost depending on the site location.
A novel solar hot water heater, one of our most promising inventions!
As an inventive company we have filed a US. patent application for a potentially proprietary solar water heater. The system operates with a Fresnel lens on a trough. Fresnel lenses can generate temperatures of hundreds of degrees. The lens heats the inside of the trough where a container of water is heated. By sending focussed solar rays into the insulated trough area, the trough’s design should lessen the amount of heat wasted when compared with parabolic solar heaters and any version where the heated surface is directly exposed to moving air. Heated water can improve the rate at which a low temperature thermal distillation (LTTD) system can desalinate water too.
(Investors wanted)
Warm ocean currents and Sea-ice.
Warm surface water is cooled by the OTEC process.
Deep-sea-cold-water can be released at or near the surface or not, but if it is, it cools the sea-surface.
Restored Sea-ice and Sea-ice albedo.
Warm ocean currents head to the poles.
So cooling warm ocean currents means cooler currents.
Warm water is far more potent at melting ice per m3 than air.
Cooler currents mean less melted ice.
And less melted ice means more albedo effect and reflected sunlight.
Profitable, and tailored, clean energy producing developments that can directly help to reverse the melting of the ice caps.
The deduction that New-otec could help to reverse climate change in more than one way is therefore, a reasonable one, isn’t it?
There is general cooling of the ocean, and there is circumstantial cooling of an ocean-current, there could be deliberate locating of new-otec plants in warm ocean current areas to maximise the effect of cooling the warm ocean surface.
Parts of Indonesia, Florida and the Bahamas are the best examples.
Ethics and morals.
Though overuse and deliberate locating of New-otec plants in certain areas is now an ethical concern, morally, there is good reason TO use New-otec, and asap.
There does need to be a large amount of water released in very specific areas to generate an observable effect on the ocean currents, and therefore the poles, but a watt of heating or cooling is a watt of heating or cooling.
Recent research suggested that just 10 GW of natural OTEC in the Florida Bahamas area could have a gross effect on the gulf stream and therefore, the Arctic, but more research is required on the extent of the current size and water temperature in that area.
10 GW natural OTEC could be 50 GW with boosted heat or 80 GW, there is no exact fixed power with boosted heat. The power to current cooling ratio can be tailored to meet with the approval of energy and environment professionals.
Deep-water can be released at the surface or not.
The deep-water once used, can be sent back to the deep-water (see the turbo-pump principle page) and if so, then much less cooling of the surface can occur.
The amount of cooling and power produced can be controlled.
The amount of cooling for a given quantity of water can be readily calculated, could the act of cooling be sold, like Co2 sequestration?
Co2 sequestration, current cooling and clean energy for the world including developing countries and remote sites where energy and water costs are highest.
A charity is planned to both market the potential of deep-water, to research the topic further and show responsibility by keeping a log of sites and how much water is being used.
Deep-water and New-otec sites can log water temperature and other variables. As the number of plants increase, and if there is widespread use, use of OTEC might otherwise be restricted unscientifically.
The same charity would aim to sell Co2 offsetting with deep-water and help to provide sites in developing countries, with free or lower cost, New-otec, and deep-sea-cold-water technology.
