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:
“Give him the darkest inch your shelf allows,
Hide him in lonely garrets, if you will,—
But his hard, human pulse is throbbing still
With the sure strength that fearless truth endows.”
—Edwin Arlington Robinson (1869–1935)
“It is only for a little while, only occasionally, methinks, that we want a garden. Surely a good man need not be at the labor to level a hill for the sake of a prospect, or raise fruits and flowers, and construct floating islands, for the sake of a paradise. He enjoys better prospects than lie behind any hill. Where an angel travels it will be paradise all the way, but where Satan travels it will be burning marl and cinders.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)