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On Is Water a Barrier to a Low-Carbon Energy Future?
All the more reason why OTEC is the answer!
The oceans are the largest solar collector.
The deep ocean is the world's largest heat sink.
OTEC can provide the massive amounts of renewable energy required for desalination.
On Dispatch from the ARPA-E Summit 2012: Scared off by Failure?
Jesse, perhaps the Nature article, Ocean Science: The power of plankton, might be a basis for the dialogue.
Paul Falkowski posed the question, Do tiny floating microorganisms in the ocean's surface waters play a massive role in controlling the global climate?
Summarily the answer is “yes”. They play a huge role cycling carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to the biosphere and back.
Unfortunately that roll is being hampered by global warming, caused in part by burning the remains of long dead phytoplankton that have been converted to oil.
An Oregon State University study Falkowski worked on confirmed the earlier work of Dalhousie researchers, also published in Nature in the article, Global phytoplankton decline over the past century, that the over heating ocean is becoming increasingly thermally stratified which negatively impact phytoplankton that are the base of the ocean food chain and the lungs of the planet.
In fact they created our oxygen-rich environment.
The Dalhousie researchers postulated that the volume of phytoplankton in the world’s oceans, which produce half of the oxygen in the atmosphere has been declining steadily for the past half century — down about 40 per cent since 1950.
Both groups concluded that the phytoplankton, that are plant life and require sunlight, are cut off from the nutrients they require from deeper, colder, waters by the thermal stratification.
Falkowski’s concludes his paper with the statement, “Ultimately, the microorganisms in the ocean will survive, as they have for billions of years, and they will help restore Earth to a biogeochemical steady state. If we can understand them better, perhaps we can help them help humanity survive as well.”
President Reagan once postulated Earth would unite against a threat by "a power from outer space."
It is more likely that threat originates in our oceans and it is time for the US to confront the same.
On Biofuels: Value vs. Volume
Thanks for the clarification Rick.
My take from Anne Jones comment in your reference, photosynthesis efficiency "could be boosted to increase food yields or sustainable biofuel production." was we were still dealing with something more like gene modification than chemistry.
I've experienced the name calling myself lately but then I haven't taken a physics or organic chemistry course in almost fifty years so maybe the shoe fits.
On Biofuels: Value vs. Volume
Rick, even with turbocharged photosynthesis, to scale do you not have water and nutrient concerns still?
On Avoiding a Natural Gas Bridge to Nowhere
Comment withdrawn
On Avoiding a Natural Gas Bridge to Nowhere
Bombshell Study: High Methane Emissions Measured Over Gas Field “May Offset Climate Benefits of Natural Gas”
Air sampling by NOAA over Colorado Finds 4% Methane Leakage, More Than Double Industry Claims.
On Biofuels: Value vs. Volume
Geoff, and then there are the shortages of water, phosphates and nitrogen.
On No Free Lunch in Our Energy Options
Robert, Ed Reid described the Free Lunch issue in these pages in thermodynamic terms,
”First Law: There's no such thing as a free lunch.
Second Law: The better lunch is, the more it costs.
Third Law: Once you start eating, you can't un-eat.
Or, if you prefer (http://www.physicsplanet.com/articles/three-laws-of-thermodynamics):”
I tried to make the point, solar is as free a lunch as it gets and the land issue is moot provided you use the largest solar collector on the planet, our oceans.
At a conference on Enhanced Ocean Upwelling last month, Gerard Nihous of the Hawaii Natural Energy Institute, University of Hawaii, ventured the maximum possible number of 100 MW OTEC power plants capable of being supported by our oceans is half a million. (this would be the sustainable equivalent of of 750 million barrels of oil per day)
The - Power paradox: Clean might not be green forever points out the thermodynamic reason why fission - or fusion for that matter - are not the answer.
On How Much Hot Air is there in Renewables?
Rick, it doesn't sound crazy it sounds fascinating.
In somewhat of a similar vain, phytoplankton - the base of the ocean food chain the lungs of the planet and one ot the world's most vital biomasses - appear to be declining due to the thermal stratification of the ocean pictured above.
The Nature article, "Global phytoplankton decline over the past century" by Daniel G. Boyce of Dalhousie postulates the volume of phytoplankton in the world's oceans, which produce half of the oxygen in the atmosphere by consuming the equivalent amount of carbon dioxide, has been declining steadily for the past half century-down about 40 percent since 1950.
"What we think is happening is that the oceans are becoming more stratified as the water warms," said Boyce. "The plants need sunlight from above and nutrients from below; and as it becomes more stratified, that limits the availability of nutrients."
As I said in an earlier post, if the energy sector was a fraction as vital as the solid state sector, we and our grandkids would be a lot better off.
On How Much Hot Air is there in Renewables?
Rick as I understand it, the whole problem with global warming is the earth is taking in solar temperature photons faster than it is re-radiating temperature photons and most of this heat is accumulating in the oceans per the following diagram.
I'm not sure what you are driving at with biology, unless you are advocating biofuels.
At a recent conference on ocean upwelling, Lissa Morgenthaler-Jones, CEO of Live Fuels shared the truth about algae, biofuels and the future of food, particularly about the dirty dozen of algae growth problems. Just the pumping of water at a land-based algae facility costs the equivalent of $50/bbl of petroleum. There were eleven more.
In comparison with terrestrial biomass, a billion tons grown on land to replace a third of the petroleum we use would mean a 5.5 times higher use of fertilizer. She thus also talked about Peak Phosphorus and the potential provided by the ocean.
It was minerals dissolved in the oceans that peaked my interest in OTEC in the first place back in the 80s. I wrote a novel, no one would publish - with good reason it now is painfully clear to me - about OTEC's potential as the power source to mine these.
Vaclav Smil also points to nitrogen as a problem for food and fuel production and in this regard some advocate ammonia as an energy currency to get power produced mid-ocean to shore.
Thanks again for your feedback.
On How Much Hot Air is there in Renewables?
Dr. Jack Hokikian points out in his book, The Science of Disorder: Understanding the Complexity, Uncertainty, and Pollution in Our World, “Every process in Nature, no matter how simple or how complicated, proceeds according to two Laws of Nature: the Law of Energy and the Law of Entropy. The first one says there exists in Nature a quantity called energy that remains constant. The second says there exists in Nature a quantity called entropy that always increases. . . The Second Law is not subject to the control of our technologies—no matter how advanced they become. While it is possible to counteract the effects of other laws of Nature—like gravity—through technology, it is impossible to reverse the direction of entropy increases by any means whatsoever. The Second Law is in absolute command.”
The importance of the Second Law is demonstrated by his statement, “As more greenhouse gases are emitted, and more forests denuded, the planet’s thermodynamic clock keeps ticking away. . . . We have to remind ourselves that we cannot come back to today’s environment if we do not like the new one: the Second Law locks the door behind us.”
We can’t avoid entropy in the useage of energy but the First Law allows use to convert heat we have in abundance to another form.
The heat we have in the greatest abundance, to the extent it is causing the seas to rise and the icecaps to melt, is ocean heat.
The Nature article, “Robust warming of the global upper ocean” determined the average amount of energy the ocean has absorbed over the period 1993 to 2008 is enough to power nearly 500 100-watt light bulbs for each of the roughly 6.7 billion people on the planet, which is 300 terrawatts (TW) annually.
This is anywhere from 85 to 95 percent of the excess energy our world is accumulating due to global warming.
Converting some of this to electricity would have a positive outcome for the environment.
On Is Water a Barrier to a Low-Carbon Energy Future?
Rick this crazy inventor appreciates the notion and filed a patent application for the same going on two years ago.
Hydrogen is suggested as an energy currency to move power created offshore to markets.
It is in fact as much a water currency as it is an energy currency. It is also lighter than air and will rise to an elevation by its own bouyancy where it can create both energy as well as water with gravitaional potential sufficient to flow to where it is needed.
I am preparing a ARPA-E submission for submission by the end of the month to demonstrate (at lab scale) the potential of this solution. As a Canadian I need a US partner to perform the bulk of the work, if anyone is interested?