1. 26 May 2005

    1324 days ago

    Wired 13.06: The Mad Genius from the Bottom of the Sea

    A nice contrast to The Long Emergency, heres a guy bent on generating wackloads of power by pulling freezing deep ocean water from the depths of the ocean to the surface, and somehow capitalizing on the temperature difference.

    “The potential of OTEC is great,” says Joseph Huang, a senior scientist for the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration and an expert on the process. “The oceans are the biggest solar collector on Earth, and there’s enough energy in them to supply a thousand times the world’s needs. If you want to depend on nature, the oceans are the only energy source big enough to tap.” ??1??

    Ok, here’s how it works and some applications – basically just pump this cold water through any number of devices to get heat air-conditioning, irrigate farmland, or generate electricity:

    Once primed, the pipe acts like a giant siphon, requiring relatively little energy to keep an inexhaustible supply of cold at hand. Already, 39-degree-Fahrenheit water courses through the Natural Energy Lab’s newest pipe – a 55-inch-diameter, 9,000-foot-long polyethylene behemoth – at the rate of 27,000 gallons a minute, 24 hours a day.
    Running the frigid pipes through heat exchangers produces unlimited air-conditioning that costs almost nothing. Draining their sweat yields an endless supply of freshwater for drinking and irrigation. The cold water also creates a temperature difference between root and fruit that Craven believes speeds growth. And by turning the flow on and off, Craven has found he can further accelerate the plants’ growth cycle by forcing them in and out of dormancy – he can get three crops of grapes a year and pineapples in eight months instead of the usual 18. Feeding some of the water through a contraption Craven calls a hurricane tower generates clean electricity. “What the world doesn’t understand,” says Craven, still zigzagging through the parking lot, “is that what we don’t have enough of is cold, not heat.” ??1??

    What’s next on this guys list? Anti Aging treatments. He claims to have invented one in which cold is forced upon the human lymphatic (?) system, which kicks the bodies own regenerating abilities up a notch or two. He’s in his 80’s and claims to be running marathons.

    How all this would actually work

    via Kjell Olsen1324 days ago

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