Here is an aid to the Global warming problem. should we try it?

Question

Every one knows what a steam engine is and how it works. The very same engine can use ammonia as the evaporation medium. When you do this the engine can operate at much lower temperatures than steam. It could extract the heat on the surface of the oceans and dissipate the heat deeper in the ocean. The energy will replace some of the use of fossil fuel. Large amounts of energy can be extracted from the ocean this way Also the cooler water on the surface could control weather patterns if we learned to use this system.
You don’t need to build the solar collector it is already in place. All you need is the generating stations under the ocean in critical places around the world.
This kind of technology has been around for more than 50 years it is nothing new. We have always had the solution before our very eyes.

No matter how good the idea is. If you can not get interest from a capital invester it will never happen.
John

Answer 1

Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) is an idea that's been tried for many years. There has never been a large and cost effective plant built. One reason is corrosion - you have to move a lot of very corrosive sea water around.

Good overview here:

http://www.oceansatlas.com/unatlas/uses/EnergyResources/Background/OTEC/OTEC2.html

People keep trying, though:

http://www.nrel.gov/otec/research.html
http://www.seasolarpower.com/otec.html
http://www.seao2.com/otec/
http://www.otecnews.org/

I think you'd have to build an awful lot of OTEC capacity to mess up the ocean ecology, except in a very local area. But that's just a guess.

Trevor - check the first link above to see exactly what he's talking about.

Answer 2

I see what you're saying but there is a drawback which is that cold water sinks.

With the oceans it's not quite as simple as that but the principle is the same. The ocean currents overturn and the cold conveyors drop down below the warmer waters (hence the term 'meridian overturning'). These loops of water take many years to go full cycle but the effect is that they mix the oceans waters.

Your proposal seems to be a scheme that would accelerate the natural oceanic cycles. These cycles distrubute heat rather than dissipating it and as such any accelerating of the cycle would not serve to reduce the heat in the oceans.

Several ideas have been proposed to harness the energy of ocean currents, some have been tried. For the time being none are commercially viable although recent developments and fresh approaches would seem to indicate that there is a greater potential for ocean generated power in the future.

Answer 3

Any idea that tends to warm deep ocean waters could potentially be lethal to all life as we know it. Deep ocean water contains dissolved gas. Warm that and that gas bubbles away into the atmosphere.

Not good.

Any idea that warms water closer to the surface = less oxygen. This could lead to the production of sulfur dioxide producing bacteria. This is suspected of killing at least some of the dinosaurs.

A better suggestion would be to play with low temp. ground heat. This is powered by nuclear reactions to a greater or lessor degree. This power is both nearly endless and less potentially volatile to the ecology of the planet?

But you conclusion that "investors" control things is political head slamming into the ostrich sands. Count Zeppelin built a huge empire from pennies sent to him by children.

The real thing is the courts. For Count Z to have asked required a paper that would print a "liberal idea" (that a poor person was asking for money is a liberal thing). Or, it would have required a conservative court refusing to steal the account for "child support" as soon as he earned money to buy an ad. Neither conditions exist today.

Our courts are not "nationally oriented" (at least not orientated to this nation's interests anyway). They are for "vested interests" (conservative). Thus, you are somewhat right. But you don't seem to know why.

Answer 4

Such generators were built and used many decades ago. But cheap oil put them out of business. Also, if you built enough of these, you would upset the thermal balance of the oceans. Who knows what ecological disasters could result. It is like burning oil that way. You can have a few thousand cars burning oil and not cause any problem. But millions upon millions of cars produce enough CO2 to make a difference on a global scale.

Answer 5

England is already having problems with the disruption of the large-scale ocean currents. The melting glaciers is causing the northern ocean water to turn from salt to fresh, and it refuses to sink. The sinking water used to be the return flow from the Gulf Stream, but now that it's disrupted, England is going to be caught in the deep freeze.

Technology that uses that is only going to make matters worse.

Answer 6

Richard branson is offering an 50 million $ reware
to clean up the worlds atnothphere

Answer 7

Do you know how toxic ammonia is? Talk about a carbon dioxide problem causing global warming and you want to replace it with ammonia. think again