Pablo says reconsider OTEC…for Kaua`i
Kauai’s new energy coop is launching a crash program to get the island off fossil fuels (80% from this “dirty” Port Allen plant), after a timely review of available options.
KIUC picked the top five, and rated OTEC (ocean thermal energy conversion) number six.
The web’s top blogger on energy technologies, Pablo Paster, notes that if the “efficiency of energy conversion” were considered, OTEC would rank much higher.
It’s a free “heat engine”, says Pablo, in that it brings the cold water (free) together with the warm air (free) and converts the difference into electricity.
Turns out, this home-grown technology (which KIUC deemed premature, although NELHA has been at it since 1974) just attracted its first major investor: the US military (at an undisclosed location) will get a 13 megawatt OTEC facility that will also generate 1.25 million gallons of fresh water a day.
A smaller 1.2 megawatt facility will be also be built at Kone with $10 million to $15 million in private funding, and will be operational in 2008.
What do they know that KIUC doesn’t?
As blogger Doug White at poinography notes,
“Compared to Hawaii County’s need for power, this OTEC plant will be a drop in the bucket, but every little bit helps to wean the state from petroleum. Also, and this is no small thing, this form of power generation does not involve “ugly†wind turbines, nor tapping the culturally-sensitve steam of Pele, nor acres of solar arrays, etc. In other words, the NIMBY effects are (so far) fewer.”
Also, electricity from large ocean thermal energy conversion plants could be used to create hydrogen, which could be used to power vehicles.
The KIUC study acknowledges that on a levelized cost-of-generation basis,
which measures the total life-cycle cost of a technology considering capital
cost, operating and maintenance cost, capacity factor, and fuel cost (if
applicable), OTEC rates well with the technologies they favor, and is actually significantly cheaper than solar, ethanol or biodiesel.
Still they have selected biomass, waste-to-energy, wind, landfill gas and hydro as their top-five near-term priorities.
OTEC ranks sixth and is slated for mid-term development “pending successful technology development.” Whatever that means.
OTEC received lower scores in the KIUC rating process because:
- plants would need to be very large to be economical.
- there are outstanding questions about possible impacts to ocean life and ecosystems from possible changes to thermal, salinity, and nutrient gradients.
As KIUC’s consultants acknowledge:
“The relatively moderate projected cost of offshore ocean thermal makes it a potentially attractive resource in the 10 to 20 year timeframe. The projected cost assumes that the technology will develop through continued R&D, demonstration projects, and successful commercial installations. Given that Hawaii is one of the better locations in the world for ocean thermal, KIUC should monitor development of this technology.”
Perhaps that will now happen sooner rather than later.
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