In reply to Jones Beene's message of Thu, 15 Nov 2007 09:16:36 -0800: Hi, [snip] >On the overlooked importance of the energy (heat) sink. Part 1. > >We know from OTEC - Ocean_Thermal_Energy_Conversion - that even warm >water can provide megawatts of power, so long as there is a readily >available heat sink. > >In the case of OTEC- we find that warm surface water is working against >cool deep water. The delta T is not high, indicating that overall >efficiency is FAR less important for producing inexpensive energy >without fossil fuel, than is the all important "access" to a good energy >sink. The most important feature of this system is the heat-sink. > >http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_thermal_energy_conversion > >Correspondingly, even in a nuclear power plant the most expensive >subsystem, surprisingly, is the cooling tower. The installed cost of >these enormous structures is typically double the cost of the reactor >itself. [snip] ...which seems a waste to me. Why not use the "waste" heat for desalination? It has fresh water as a "free" byproduct of the cooling process.
Regards, Robin van Spaandonk The shrub is a plant.
