Ocean thermal energy: Potentials and pitfalls
Abstract Thermal energy in vast reaches of the world's oceans lies waiting to be tapped by a fuel‐hungry world. The United States— the one heavily industrialized nation with “OTEC”; waters lapping its shores—is actively developing the technology; Japan and a European consortium are also pressing forward. The resource may be of practical value soon to favorably situated islands (e.g., Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Cuba) and Third World countries. Meaningful contributions to mainland U.S. electricity needs are almost certainly a decade or more in the future, and conjectural. Environmental dangers loom if OTEC is too extensively and hurriedly deployed, and for the United States it is not a substitute for nuclear fission and fossil fuel in meeting immediate energy needs.
SAIL POWER FOR THE WORLD'S CARGO SHIPS
Through the end of the last century, sailing ships carried a significant portion of the world's trans-ocean cargoes. But by the close of World War I, they had been virtually driven from the seas by steam ships that used low-cost fossil fuels for steady power and thereby kept reliably on schedule. Recent forecasts of world energy consumption and costs indicate that the price of marine bunker oil, which is about $15 per barrel as of this writing, may double or triple within the next decade. Such projections are of enormous concern to operators of the cargo ships now plying the seas: expenditures for fuel make up 20 to 30 per cent of the total cost of operating a modern vessel. In this context it is possible to identify the benefits of even a partial switch of the world's commercial fleet back to sail power. Sails constitute an elegant and technically feasible solar energy conversion system that remains unexploited by energy planners and industry.
Satellite Elongation into a True "Sky-Hook"
The theoretical possibility of self-supporting cables extending into space from earth and from extraterrestrial rotating or revolving bodies is examined. In principle, augmentation (and duplication) of the installation and the launching of masses into orbit or into space could be accomplished with energy derived entirely from the rotation of the central body. In practice, a portion of the total energy requirement would probably be supplied by simple mechanical devices.