Obviously, technology is different today than it was 100 years ago.

and it will be diff in the future.

I don’t think wave or tidal energy will ever be huge, but they could be helpful in regions with god resources.

Those who are all giddy about the prospects must think generations before us never thought of it!

The truth is, the amount of equipment, the cost of building it, maintenance and more, far outweigh the power production.

Uncle B, let’s use your argument, I need money, I’d like to borrow yours! I’ll give you one percent. Don’t laugh, I plan to pay you forever, so don’t counter with it’s not enough, as you’ll be contradicting yourself and your profoundly niave post two years ago.

Now the question… where’s the follow up on this orig post, what’s the cost per KwH? Uncle B might be willing to pay $3.20 cents a KWH, but what about the rest of us?

What you are talking about is decades away. The efficiency of deep-sea energies are terribly inefficient, and pales in comparison to other clean, renewable energy sources that are in the near future (for example, fusion power as produced by the under-construction HiPER). Also, removing minerals from sea water is mostly unnecessary. For example, the extraction of uranium from water requires an exorbitant amount of water and a complex system of electromagnetic and ion controls. Plus, uranium can really only be used for nuclear weapons and unclean (and sometimes dangerous) fission power.

What you are talking about is decades away. The efficiency of deep-sea energies are terribly inefficient, and pales in comparison to other clean, renewable energy sources that are in the near future (for example, fusion power as produced by the under-construction HiPER). Also, removing minerals from sea water is mostly unnecessary. For example, the extraction of uranium from water requires an exorbitant amount of water and a complex system of electromagnetic and ion controls. Plus, uranium can really only be used for nuclear weapons and unclean (and sometimes dangerous) fission power.

They are also starting work on the ocean temperature differences, pumping cold deep ocean sea water up to cool our coastal cities.

Next will be massive desalination plants utilizing various combinations of all these power technologies for potable water, industrial and agricultural use. They will start out pumping water into the driest portions of coastal states, and gradualy expand the areas served.

Of course as most urban areas are already on the water grid, it will not take much to hook into that grid to sell desalinated water hundreds of miles inland.

As soon as they get sea water moving thru the pipes and being desalinated, they will start recovering the hundreds of minerals and chemicals in sea water that have merchantable value. Right now as I understand it only 4 or 5 minerals such as salt are routinely separated from sea water for sale. That will change big time, with many more being recovered; things like mercury and uranium, tin and silver, on and on.

larry hagedon

They are also starting work on the ocean temperature differences, pumping cold deep ocean sea water up to cool our coastal cities.

Next will be massive desalination plants utilizing various combinations of all these power technologies for potable water, industrial and agricultural use. They will start out pumping water into the driest portions of coastal states, and gradualy expand the areas served.

Of course as most urban areas are already on the water grid, it will not take much to hook into that grid to sell desalinated water hundreds of miles inland.

As soon as they get sea water moving thru the pipes and being desalinated, they will start recovering the hundreds of minerals and chemicals in sea water that have merchantable value. Right now as I understand it only 4 or 5 minerals such as salt are routinely separated from sea water for sale. That will change big time, with many more being recovered; things like mercury and uranium, tin and silver, on and on.

larry hagedon

I’m a fan of ocean energy, because the potential is just enormous. Internet Reader and Alpha certainly sound like they know what they’re talking about, but I’d like to remind them that our earliest ventures into energy were equally inefficient. Of course, back then the only thing we had to compare it to was manual labor, so it looked much better than it actually was from today’s perspective.

Still, they’re quite correct that this technology and others like it are not likely to be adopted until the kinks are worked out. That’s the real value of these projects though, in my opinion. We’re learning, and we’ll get better. Renewable energy is all over the place. We just have to get better at capturing it.