1. Energy from ocean currents
Ocean currents flow at a steady velocity
Place turbines in these currents (like the gulf stream) that operate just like wind turbines
Water is more than 800 times denser than air, so for the same surface area, water moving 12 miles per hour exerts about the same amount of force as a constant 110 mph wind.
Expensive proposition
Upkeep could be expensive and complicated
Environmental concerns
species protection (including fish and marine mammals) from injury from turning turbine blades.
Consideration of shipping routes and present recreational uses of location
Other considerations include risks from slowing the current flow by extracting energy.

2. The ocean as a heat engine
There can be a 20° difference between ocean surface temps and the temp at 1000m
The surface acts as the heat source, the deeper cold water acts as a heat sink.
Temperature differences are very steady
Florida, Puerto Rico, Hawaii and other pacific islands are well suited to take advantage of this idea.
Called OTEC (Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion)

3. Types of Ocean heat engines
Closed cycle system
Heat from warm seawater causes a fluid like ammonia to be evaporated in an evaporator
Expanding vapor rotates a turbine connected to an electric generator.
Cold seawater is brought up and cools the ammonia vapor in a condenser. This liquid returns to the evaporator and the process repeats.

4. Types of OTECs Open Cycle Systems Working fluid is the seawater.
Warm seawater is brought into a partial vacuum.
In the vacuum, the warm seawater boils and the steam drives a turbine
The steam enters a condenser, where it is cooled by cold seawater brought up form below and it condenses back into liquid and is discharged into the ocean.

5. Boiling water in a vacuum
The boiling point of any liquid depends upon temperature and pressure.
Boiling occurs when the molecules in the liquid have enough energy to break free from surrounding molecules
If you reduce the pressure, you reduce the amount of energy needed for the molecules to break free.
Creating a vacuum reduces the air pressure on the molecules and lowers the boiling point.

6. OTECs Carnot Efficiency is low, only about 7%
Net efficiency even lower, only about 2.5%
Low efficiencies require large water volumes to produce appreciable amount of electricity
For 100 mW output, you would need 25 X 106 liters/sec of warm and cold water.
For a 40 mW plant, a 10 meter wide intake pipe is needed. This is the size of a traffic tunnel.

7. History of OTECs Jacques d ‘Arsonval in 1881 first proposed the idea
Completed by his student, Georges Claude in (Claude also invented the neon lightbulb)
Claude built and tested the first OTEC system
Not much further interest until the energy crisis of the 1970s.
In the 1970s, US DOE financed large floating OTEC power plant to provide power to islands
One was built in Hawaii.
Little further support

8. OTEC Plant on Keahole Point, Hawaii

9. Other uses for OTEC plants
Generate Hydrogen for use as a clean fuel source
Generate fertilizer from biological nutrients that are drawn up from the ocean floor in the cold water intake.
Source of ocean water to be used as drinking water via desalination (taking out the salt).

10. Tidal Energy
Most of the energy sources we have been discussing derived their energy from the sun originally.
Tides are driven by gravity
Gravity is a force that exists between any two objects based upon their mass and the distance between them
Fg = GmM/R2 where M and m are the masses of the two objects, R is the distance between them and G is the gravitational constant = × m3 kg-1 s-2

11. Tides
So the moon and Earth exert a force of gravity on each other. The motion of the moon around the Earth counteracts the Earth’s pull, so the moon does not fall into the Earth.
The moon’s pull on the Earth causes any material that can flow on the Earth’s surface, like large bodies of water, to pile up underneath the moon.

12. Tides
The sun also causes tides the Earth, though the effect is small, unless the sun and moon line up and work together (spring tide) or are at right angles to each other and work against each other (neap tides).
In areas where there are natural basins on the coastline, water flows in and out of these basins.
So there are regular, predictable motions in the oceans which could be used as an energy source.

13. Capturing Tidal Power
Dams or barrage with gates are usually built across the mouth of basins
This allows the current to be directed into the turbines and enhances the effect.

14. Rance River Tidal Power station in France

15. Current and Future tidal power stations
Rance River, France 240Mw
White sea, Russia 1 MW
Annapolis River, Nova Scotia, Canada, 18mW
Two most favorable sites in the US: Cook Inlet and Bristol Bay in Alaska and Bay of Funday which covers the Northeastern US and southeastern Canada.
Development of the Bay of Funday would provide 15,000mW to the northeastern US and 15,000mW to Canada

16. Bay of Fundy

17. Power Power: * P = Cp x 0.5 x ρ x A x V³
Cp is the turbine coefficient of performance
P = the power generated (in watts)
ρ = the density of the water (seawater is 1025 kg/m³)
A = the sweep area of the turbine (in m²)
V³ = the velocity of the flow cubed (i.e. V x V x V)

18. Environmental Issues
alters the flow of saltwater in and out of estuaries, which changes the hydrology and salinity and possibly negatively affects the marine mammals that use the estuaries as their habitat
Some species lost their habitat due to La Rance’s construction, but other species colonized the abandoned space, which caused a shift in diversity.
Turbidity (the amount of matter in suspension in the water) decreases as a result of smaller volume of water being exchanged between the basin and the sea. This lets light from the Sun to penetrate the water further, improving conditions for the phytoplankton. The changes propagate up the food chain, causing a general change in the ecosystem.
If the turbines are moving slowly enough, such as low velocities of rpm, fish kill is minimalized and silt and other nutrients are able to flow through the structures . Tidal fences block off channels, which makes it difficult for fish and wildlife to migrate through those channels. Larger marine mammals such as seals or dolphins can be protected from the turbines by fences or a sonar sensor auto-breaking system that automatically shuts the turbines down when marine mammals are detected
As a result of less water exchange with the sea, the average salinity inside the basin decreases, also affecting the ecosystem
Estuaries often have high volume of sediments moving through them, from the rivers to the sea. The introduction of a barrage into an estuary may result in sediment accumulation within the barrage, affecting the ecosystem and also the operation of the barrage.

19. Innovative strategies
East River in New York-tidal river
Plans for 300 underwater turbines to tap the rivers 4 knot tidal flow and produce 10mW
Already tested with a prototype, took
3 attempts. First two the blades were torn off by the currents.
Tidal Lagoons
Artificial lagoons with high walls.
Lagoon fills and empties through apertures, turbines are spun and generate electricity
doesn’t disturb current environmental conditions as much and expands locations by only requiring large tidal variations

20. Wave Energy
It is estimated that there is 2-3 million mW of energy in the waves breaking on the world coastlines, with energies derived ultimately form the wind
In Great Britain alone, almost twice the current electricity demand breaks on the countries coastlines every day.
A vast untapped resource, but how to harness it?

21. How are waves formed
As wind blows along the surface of a body of water, a surface wave develops.
As the wind blows, pressure and friction forces perturb the equilibrium of the water surface
These forces transfer energy from the air to the water, forming waves.
The water molecules actually move in circular motion
When a wave can no longer support its top, it collapses or breaks.
Usually happens when a wave reaches shallow water, such as near a coastline.

22. Harnessing the energy
LIMPET (Land Installed Marine Powered Energy Transformer)
Breakwater Design
PowerBuoys
Pelamis

23. LIMPET
Takes the wave into a funnel and drives air pressure past two turbines, each of which turns a 250 kW generator.
Installed on the island of Islay, off Scotland’s west coast.

24. Breakwater Installed where there would normally be a breakwater
a series of layered ‘reservoirs’ up a carefully calculated slope.
This is then converted to kinetic energy (by falling down), and this turns the turbine/generator.
A 500m breakwater can produce respectable 150 kW generator capacity
Only in design phase, non of these up and running yet

25. PowerBuoys
In a permanent magnet linear generator buoy, an electric coil surrounds a magnetic shaft inside the buoy
the magnetic shaft is anchored to the sea floor. When waves cause the coil to move up and down relative to the fixed magnetic shaft, voltage is induced and electricity is generated.
Each buoy could potentially produce 250 kilowatts of power.
A fleet of about 200 such buoys could power the business district of downtown Portland.

26. PELAMIS
made of large semi-submerged sections, like a submarine cut into pieces
the wave action makes the Pelamis bend between the sections.
This bending action forces hydraulic pistons to move in the device and push fluid around generating a linear flow, which produces energy.
A 1 sq kilometer farm could produce 30 Megawatts.

27. Geothermal Energy
Based on the heat that naturally occurs in the Earth’s interior
Sine the Earth’s interior is hotter than the surface, this heat flows from the interior towards the surface.
Heat is the result of decay of radioactive nuclei inside the Earth, heat left over from the formation of the Earth and heat from the friction of heavier material sinking towards the center.
Earth’s core temperature is 7200 F, which is close to the temperature on the Sun’s surface.

28. Radioactive Decay
the process in which an unstable atomic nucleus loses energy by emitting ionizing particles and radiation.
Most important source of heat inside the earth
loss of energy results in an atom of one type (parent nuclide) transforming to an atom of a different type, (daughter nuclide).
Eg: a carbon-14 atom (the "parent") emits radiation and transforms to a nitrogen-14 atom (the "daughter").
This is a random process on the atomic level, in that it is impossible to predict when a given atom will decay, but given a large number of similar atoms the decay rate, on average, is predictable.

29. Geothermal Not a new idea
Used the heat from inside the Earth for thousands of years for bathing (hot springs) and space heating.
First electric power use was by Prince Piero Ginori Conti tested the first geothermal power generator on 4 July 1904 in Larderello, Italy.
In 1958 New Zealand built a plant of its own.
First geothermal power plant in the United States was made in 1922 by John D. Grant at The Geysers Resort Hotel.
In 1960, Pacific Gas and Electric began operation of the first successful geothermal power plant in the United States at The Geysers. The original turbine installed lasted for more than 30 years and produced 11 MW net power.

30. The Geysers
The Geysers is a geothermal power field located 72 miles (116 km) north of San Francisco, California.
It is the largest geothermal development in the world.
It is currently outputting over 750 MW. It consists of 22 separate power plants that utilize steam from more than 350 producing wells.