Land, Shelf and Floating Sites
OTEC has the potential to produce gigawatts of electrical power, and in conjunction with electrolysis, could produce enough hydrogen to completely replace all projected global fossil fuel consumption. Reducing costs remains an unsolved challenge, however. OTEC plants require a long, large diameter intake pipe, which is submerged a kilometer or more into the ocean's depths, to bring cold water to the surface.
Read more about this topic: Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion
Famous quotes containing the words shelf and/or floating:
“Books are like imprisoned souls till someone takes them down from a shelf and frees them.”
—Samuel Butler (1835–1902)
“We sank a foot deep in water and mud at every step, and sometimes up to our knees, and the trail was almost obliterated, being no more than that a musquash leaves in similar places, where he parts the floating sedge. In fact, it probably was a musquash trail in some places.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)