Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion Power Plant Research Articles

Role of R717 blends in ocean thermal energy conversion organic Rankine cycle

Ammonia (R717) is widely deemed to be the potential working fluid of the ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC) system. To further improve the performance of OTEC Rankine cycle, R717-based binary non-azeotropic blends are employed as the working fluids, where R134a and R125 are selected as the additives. The thermodynamic model as well as the cost estimation model of OTEC system is developed to demonstrate the potential of power generation. The energy, net efficiency, and Levelized cost of electricity are evaluated and examined for OTEC system employing different blends, encompassing R717/R134a and R717/R125. The results indicate that the thermodynamic and economic indexes of R717-based blends are superior to pure fluids (i.e., R134a, R125, and R717). To maximize the net power, the mass fractions of R717 are 0.1 and 0.5 for the R717/R134a and R717/R125 blends, respectively, in a 30 kW-scale OTEC system, where the net power are higher than that of the pure R717 by 134% and 87%. In addition, R717-based blends perform better in energy cost than pure fluids, with 0–67% lower Levelized cost of electricity. Especially, a large-scale OTEC power plant is more economically profitable than a small one.

Reliability assessment of the ocean thermal energy conversion systems through Monte Carlo simulation considering outside temperature variation

AbstractThe ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC) systems, as renewable energy-based power plants, have the potential to play a significant role in meeting future electricity demands due to the vast expanse of the world's oceans. These systems employ the temperature difference between surface ocean waters and deep ocean waters to drive a thermodynamic cycle and produce electricity. The temperature of deep ocean waters, approximately 1000 m below the surface, is approximately 4 °C, while surface ocean temperatures typically range between 20 and 30 °C. The generated power of OTEC systems is dependent on these temperature differences and may vary with changes in surface ocean temperatures. In this study, the main focus is to find the impact of temperature variation on the failure rates of OTEC system components and the generated power output of these plants. The findings indicate that as the demand for the power system increases, its reliability decreases. In order to improve the reliability of the power system, the integration of a new generation unit, such as the close cycle OTEC power plant under investigation, could be necessary. The findings also indicate the importance of considering temperature variation in the evaluation of the reliability of such types of power plants based on renewable energy.

Effect of Sea Current to Composites Cold Water Pipeline of Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion in Indonesia

Ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC) is a new source of future energy that is clean and environmentally friendly with zero emissions. It is very potential to be developed in Indonesia, which is located at the equator. to meet the electricity needs of the outermost and remote islands that are not currently covered by the main power plants in Indonesia. Indonesia has deep seas around the islands with temperatures of 5°C and surface temperatures above 25-28°C, so a temperature difference of 20°C can be obtained easily for OTEC power plants. Cold water supplied to the OTEC plant with a capacity of 2 MW at sea level requires a pipe with a diameter of 4 m and a length of 500 m. The pipeline must be insulating, not floating, corrosion-resistant, and resistant to current loads. Current is a very serious concern with the potential to cause pipe failure. The pipe material being investigated is a short fiberglass High-density polyethylene composite. In this study, a simulation of the effect of current on the composite pipe was carried out to obtain an overview of the stress that occurs and the proper pipe dimensions used. The highest current speed in Indonesian water is found in the Makassar Strait from July to September at 0.8 m/s at a depth of 100 m. Based on the OTEC Pro Simulation software for a capacity of 2 MW, resulted in the pipe size is 4 m and the pipe length is 500 m which refers to the temperature profile. In the simulation, the calculation of the dynamically moving current becomes the drag force on the pipe, and with the Autodesk inventor, it is known that the deflection in the pipe, and the yield stress cause failure in the pipe. Subsequently, from the deflection and yield stress data, a pipe thickness of 20-30 cm is obtained for the short fiberglass-HDPE composite material which is safe to use as an OTEC cold water pipe with a capacity of 2 MW. Pipes with a thickness smaller than 15 cm are too thin for a diameter of 4 m because the pipe wall has already experienced a deflection in a horizontal position and pipes with a thickness of > 30 cm are known from the simulation that the pipes cannot be connected rigidly and the pipes also experience stress due to current and pipe weight. so that the stress becomes greater in the pipe.

Economic Viability Analysis for an OTEC Power Plant at San Andrés Island

This paper presents the economic feasibility analysis of a 2 MW Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) power plant in the open cycle. The plant can supply 6.35% of the average annual consumption of the electricity demand located at San Andrés Island (Colombia). On the one hand, the work presents the selection of the place to locate an offshore facility considering the technical viability while, on the other hand, the economic viability analysis is performed. The latter considers two scenarios: one without desalinated water production and another one with desalinated water. In this way, it is intended to first determine its construction’s technical requirements to analyse its economic performance. This approach allows us to have a general idea of the implementation costs and the benefits obtained with this type of plant, for the particular case of San Andrés, an island in the Colombian Caribbean with sustained stress on electricity production and freshwater generation. The results obtained show that the technology is viable and that the investment can be recovered in an adequate time horizon.

Environmental impacts of utilization of ageing fixed offshore platform for ocean thermal energy conversion

Abstract Most Malaysian jacket platforms have outlived their design life. As these old platforms have outlived their design life, other alternatives must be considered. As several offshore oil and gas extraction installations approach the end of their operational life, many options such as decommissioning and the development of a new source of energy such as wind farms are introduced. The objective of this paper is to investigate the environmental impacts of utilising ageing fixed offshore platform as a source for Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC). The environmental impact of utilising an ageing fixed offshore platform as an OTEC source is discussed. OTEC produces energy by taking advantage of temperature variations between the ocean surface water and the colder deep water through cold-water intake piping, which requires a seawater depth of 700 metres. The output of this study shows that OTEC is envisioned to preserve marine life, becoming a new and reliable source of energy, assist clean water production, and reduce the negative impact of climate change. OTEC platforms utilising ageing platforms may lead to 44 % of fish catch in the ocean, remove 13 GW of surface ocean heat for every GW of electricity production per year, generate 1.3105 tonnes of hydrogen per year for each GW of electricity generated. In addition, OTEC platforms can reduce approximately 5106 tonnes of carbon dioxide from the environment for 1 GW of electricity generated per year, and supply 2 million litres of water per day for a 1 MW platform. Since Malaysia’s seawater profile allows for installing a fixed offshore platform as an OTEC power plant, Malaysia has many potentials to profit from the OTEC process.

A Novel Ocean Thermal Energy Driven System for Sustainable Power and Fresh Water Supply.

The ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC) is a potential substitute for traditional power plants in tropical islands and coastal regions. However, the OTEC power generation cycle has low thermal efficiency and the integrated utilization is imperative, in which an OTEC coupled with seawater desalination is the most attractive option. Membrane distillation (MD) has distinct advantages making itself a competitive process for seawater desalination, especially the feature that the drained warm seawater from the OTEC power plant can be recycled, improving the integrated output of the OTEC system. In this study, an innovative OTEC system coupling a power generation sub-cycle (PGC) and a water production sub-cycle (WPC) was proposed, composed of the upstream organic Rankine cycle and the downstream membrane distillation modules. The mass, energy and exergy balance of the individual equipment, the sub-cycles and the whole system were performed by constructing the corresponding balance models. The thermal dynamic parameters were calculated, and the performance of power generation and water production was predicted. The results showed that by coupling with the MD desalination, the thermal efficiency of the OTEC system can be greatly improved from 2.19% to 25.38% while the exergy efficiency changed little. For a 100 kW OTEC power generation cycle, the water production rate approached 58.874 t/d. In addition, the economic analysis based on the electricity and water sale was carried out, and the profit can be improved by extra water production, especially in the Hawaii and Rainbow Beach by nearly 20%.

Energy, Exergy and Exergo-Economic Analysis of an OTEC Power Plant Utilizing Kalina Cycle

This study aims to analyse an Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) system through the use of a Kalina Cycle (KC), having a water-ammonia mixture as a working fluid. KC represents a technology capable of exploiting the thermal gap of ocean water. This system was then compared with OTEC systems, which exploit ammonia, R134A and butane-pentane mixture as working fluid. The comparison was carried on through energy analysis, exergetic analysis, and exergo-economic analysis using the EES (Engineering Equation Solver) software. For each case study, cost rates and auxiliary equations were evaluated for all components and the mass flow rate and unit exergy cost for each stream. The results showed that the KC with water-ammonia as working fluid achieves the best exergo-economic performance among the examined cycles. The cost of electricity produced through KC using water - ammonia mixture was found to be 26,66 c€/kWh. The thermal efficiency and the exergetic efficiency were calculated and the withdrawal depth of ocean water was considered. The efficiencies resulted to be 3.68% for the thermal efficiency and 95.96% for the exergetic efficiency.

Assessing biofouling in Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) power plant – A review

Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) harnesses thermal energy stored at different seawater depths via power generation from a thermodynamic closed-loop cyclical system. Apart from its consistent energy generation, it could be diversified into other side industries, making OTEC an attractive and sustainable source of renewable energy. However, the process that utilises seawater as its main fluid is exposed to biofouling deposition due to unwanted growth and accumulation of biological elements on any contact surfaces, potentially affecting its efficiency and damaging equipment in the process. Considering that biofouling is an inevitable condition that may not be eliminated, a comprehensive study for assessing potential biofouling growth and deposition mechanism is a crucial step for strategizing effective biofouling management in a commercial and large-scale OTEC power plant facility. This review paper focuses on evaluating suitable biofouling assessment techniques specifically for a large-scale OTEC power plant facility. This is achieved by evaluating previous and proposed biofouling assessment techniques relevant to OTEC systems by focusing on their implementation under a realistic OTEC setup. The initial study indicated that the potential of biofouling deposition may be unavoidable in some sections in all OTEC models, despite biofouling-free design consideration. Previous OTEC biofouling studies were evaluated with reported physical and biological assessment approaches indicated the need to further improve these techniques especially in continuous and non-destructive methods. Therefore, several biofouling monitoring systems reported from other water treatment industries were considered for the OTEC systems, with findings indicated the importance of considering important OTEC operational parameters for feasible and robust biofouling monitoring systems. Two major parameters which are seawater intake flow rate and temperature variation at different seawater intake levels were evaluated under OTEC operational evaluation by considering examples of practices conducted in cooling water systems in the power plant industry. A realistic biofouling monitoring setup for mimicking continuous changes in biofouling deposition is required, in this case by side-connecting an operated OTEC power plant facility with a pilot plant setup or a side sampler. This step allows the application of proposed biofouling monitoring techniques under a realistic and uninterrupted biofouling deposition setup.

Linear vs non-linear analysis on self-induced vibration of OTEC cold water pipe due to internal flow

This paper presents analytical and numerical analyses on self-induced vibration of Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) Cold Water Pipe (CWP) for a 100 MW-net OTEC power plant. The CWP is described as a vertically-hanged, top-tensioned riser subjected to internal flow effect (IFE) and ambient fluid effects (added mass and drag force). In the analytical analysis, two definitions of the drag force equation in the frequency-domain term and time-domain term are considered yielding a linear differential equation and a non-linear differential equation. The stability is assessed by discretizing the equations using Frobenius method and Galerkin Method and then plotting its eigenfrequencies or its eigenvalues in an Argand diagram. Separately, a fully-coupled fluid-structure interaction is carried out in a numerical simulation for particular cases. The scantlings of the riser are chosen from the available size of Fiber Reinforced Plastic (FRP) pipe in a manufacturer and varied accordingly for future production capacity development. The riser is pinned at the top and mounted at the bottom. Results indicate that the predicted critical velocity in the time domain is averagely 20% higher compared to the frequency domain. The effect of the clump weight on the critical velocity is more significant for light material compared with relatively high-density material.

Techno-economic efficiencies and environmental criteria of Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion closed Rankine cycle using different working fluids

Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) is a foundation for an appealing renewable energy technology owing to its vast and inexhaustible resources of energy, stability, and sustainable output. Development of OTEC power plant is to exploit the energy accumulated in between the top layer of warm surface seawater (heat source), and the cold layer of deep seawater (heat sink). It operates based on Rankine cycle to produce electricity between the source and the sink at the smallest temperature difference of approximately 20 K. OTEC power plant commonly utilized ammonia as working fluid. Nevertheless, ammonia poses potential lethal health risks and hazardous fluid. Hence, the effect of the working fluid types and the subsequent operation conditions may be critical and therefore become the subject of this study. In addition to OTEC power plant’s thermodynamic efficiencies study, this research also explores the economic efficiencies in term of capital cost per net power output ($/kW) and environmental criteria of different working fluids including that of ammonia, ammonia-water mixture (0.9), propane, and refrigerants (R22, R32, R134a, R143a, and R410a). The results showed that ammonia-water mixture gave the excellent performance with regard to the characteristics of heat transfer with the best thermodynamic efficiency of 4.04% compared to pure ammonia with 3.21%, propane with 3.09%, followed by refrigerants from 3.03% to 3.13%. Capital cost of using propane was economically efficient with 15730 $/kW compared to ammonia-water mixture at 16201$/kW, refrigerants from 16990 $/kW to 21400 $/kW, and pure ammonia being the costliest at 21700 $/kW. Despite being lower in its thermodynamic efficiency, propane gave the lowest capital cost and had the lowest toxicity in contrast to all other working fluids. Therefore, propane has the potential to be used as a clean and safe working fluid that would further enhance the OTEC technology.

Performance of Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion Closed Rankine Cycle Using Different Working Fluids

Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) is a foundation for an appealing renewable energy technology regarding its vast and inexhaustible resources of energy, renewability, stability, and sustainable output. The principle of an OTEC power plant is to exploit the energy accumulated in between the top layer of warm surface seawater (heat source), and the cold layer of deep seawater (heat sink). The plant operates based on a Rankine cycle to produce electricity between the source and the sink at the smallest temperature difference of approximately 20 K. In an OTEC power plant, a commonly utilized working fluid is ammonia since its qualities are suitable for the OTEC cycle. Nevertheless, ammonia poses certain potentially lethal health risks and hazardous fluid. Hence, the effect of the working fluid types, and the subsequent operation conditions may be critical and therefore become the subject of this study. The analysed working fluids, including that of ammonia, are ammonia-water mixture (0.9), propane, and refrigerants (R22, R32, R134a, R143a, and R410a). The results revealed that ammonia-water mixture showed the highest network performance and reliability. Even so, it is essential to continue seeking the suitable working fluids which are safe and economically effective to replace ammonia.

Simulation Modeling The Performance of Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion Power Cycle

Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) is a foundation for an appealing renewable energy technology with regards to its vast and inexhaustible resources of energy, renewability, stability, and sustainable output. The principle of an OTEC power plant is to exploit the energy stored in between the upper layer of warm surface seawater (heat source), and the cold layer of deep seawater (heat sink). The plant operates based on a Rankine cycle to produce electricity between the source and the sink at the minimum temperature difference of approximately 20 K. The main objective of this study is to evaluate the performance of the proposed OTEC closed Rankine cycle using ammonia as the working fluid, to be paralleled with basic OTEC Rankine cycle. Preliminary simulation was performed at the initial stage of the study to validate the simulation model by referring to previous OTEC studies. The same developed model was deployed to test the efficiency of the proposed modified OTEC Rankine cycle, resulting in an enhancement in terms of thermal cycle performance from 3.43% to 7.98%. This study has revealed that the proposed OTEC closed Rankine cycle which introduced an interstage superheating as well as an improved condenser cooling system, augmented the system competence of an OTEC power cycle.

Site Determination for OTEC Turbine Installation of 100 MW Capacity in North Bali Waters

This research was conducted to investigate a suitable location for the OTEC (Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion) pilot plant in North Bali. The investigation was done by calculating the theoretical potential of electric power output using the method of Uehara and Ikegami (1990) for closed cycle OTEC. OTEC power plants require a temperature difference between surface and bottom water layers at least 20°C. Temperature data were obtained from the HYCOM temperature model for a period of 9 years (2008 - 2017) at 4 points which were verified with field data taken in 2017 using KR Geomarin III. The results of field measurements show that the sea surface temperature (SST) in the study area ranges from 28 to 31°C while at depth of 800 m 5.75°C. ∆T values range from 22 to 25°C. Verification of modelling temperature and measurement temperature shows that the modeling results resemble the temperature of North Bali Waters. Analyses results for the four points showed that B-11, located in the Tedjakula area, has the largest electrical power output (71,109 MW). Thus, point B-11 is the best location for development of OTEC pilot plant in North Bali Waters.

Stability based approach to design cold-water pipe (CWP) for ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC)

Cold-water pipe (CWP) is a novel, most-challenging component of Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) floating structure which is installed to transport the deep seawater to the board. For commercial scale, the transported seawater flow rate will be in the order of 102 m3/s. This large amount of internal flow may trigger instability which leads to the failure of CWP. Considering this issue, the present paper aims to design commercial-scale OTEC CWP focusing on the effects of internal flow to the stability of the pipe. The design analysis is deliberated to select the pipe material, top joint configuration (fixed, flexible, pinned) and bottom supporting system (with and without clump weight). Initially, the analytical solution is built by taking into account the components of the pipe dynamics. Separately, a fully coupled fluid-structure interaction analysis between the pipe and the ambient fluid is carried out using ANSYS interface. Using scale models, the results obtained from the analytical solution are compared with the ones from numerical analysis to examine the feasibility of the analytical solution. After being verified, the analytical solution is used to observe the dynamic behavior of the CWP for 100 MW-net OTEC power plant in the full-scale model. The results yield conclusions that pinned connection at the top joint is preferable to decrease the applied stress, clump weight installation is necessary to reduce the motion displacement and Fiber Reinforced Plastic (FRP) is the most suitable material among the examined materials.

Techno-economic analysis of multipurpose OTEC power plants

Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) is a promising technology to provide sustainable and dispatchable energy supply to oceanic coastal areas and islands. It exploits the temperature difference between deep cold ocean water and warm tropical surface water in an Organic RankineCycle (ORC), guaranteeing a continuous and dispatchable electric production, overcoming one ofthe most critical issue of renewable generators such as PV or wind turbines. Despite the technological maturity of ORC application to OTEC systems, it still presents technical and economicbarriers mainly related to their economic feasibility, large initial investments as well as heavy and time demanding civil installation works. To overcome such issues, multipurpose OTEC plants are proposed, producing electrical power as well as other products, such as useful thermal power (e.g. ambient cooling) and desalinated water. Since OTEC engineering is still at a lowdegree of maturity, there are no widespread and established tools to facilitate OTEC feasibility studies and to allow performance and cost optimization. Therefore, in this paper, a new tool for techno-economic analysis and optimization of multipurpose OTEC plants is presented. Starting from a detailed database of local water temperature and depth, the approach allows to provide a quantitative insight on the achievable performance, required investment, and expected economic returns, allowing for a preliminary but robust assessment of site potential as well as plant size. After the description of the techno-economic approach and related performance and cost functions, the tool is applied to an OTEC power plant case study in the range of 1 MW gross electrical power, including a preliminary assessment of scaling-up effects.

Modelling and experimentation of heat exchangers for Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion during transient operation

Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) is considered as a non-intermittent base energy resource. It consists in using the difference of temperature between the hot surface seawater in tropical seas and the cold deep seawater to produce electricity by mean of a thermodynamic motor cycle. The Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) is adapted for this kind of application. In the literature, performances of such a system are often studied under steady state conditions, mainly because the temperature of the sources do not present intermittency. However, the study of the transient behavior of an OTEC power plant could be of major interest for piloting purposes. With this aim, a dynamic model of heat exchanger is presented with the use of a Moving Boundary Model (MBM) in order to distinguish the monophasic and diphasic parts of the transfer. Moreover, experiments have been carried out on an onshore OTEC prototype located in Reunion Island and compared to simulations. The case being studied is an increase of 1 °C of the hot water during 3 minutes leading to a good agreement between simulation and measurement.

A novel modelling approach to the identification of optimum sites for the placement of ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC) power plant: application to the tropical island climate of Mauritius

The geographical location of Mauritius near the warm tropical waters of the Indian Ocean coupled to the vast exclusive economic zone approximating 2.3 million square kilometers, encourage the promotion of ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC) systems. Technological advancements have enabled offshore structures to pump the cold water lying at 1000 m depth in the seawater column to the surface, and through the temperature difference set up with the warm surface layer, drives a turbine and generates electricity. In this study, a model has been developed to compute the temperature difference between the deep (1000 m) and surface (20 m) seawater layers around Mauritius. An algorithm has been implemented to determine the net power generated from a proposed OTEC power plant, acquired through the processing of sea surface temperature satellite images, at a resolution of 1 km. The spatial and temporal variations of the net power generated has been observed by splitting the annual data into four monsoonal time frames. Results show that the south-western region of Mauritius possesses high OTEC resources, with annual mean daily net power generation capacity of about 95 MW, representing about 20% of the peak power demand of the island. Moreover, the bathymetry of the southern region is propitious due to deep cold water availability at a proximity of less than 5km from the coastline. The energy and exergy efficiencies of the OTEC system are found to be 1.9 and 22.8%, respectively. A cost–benefit analysis indicates that profits of the order of 4.5 times the initial investment can be generated.

A study of OTEC application on deep-sea FPSOs

The limited petroleum resources available for mankind have led to the exploration and development of oil fields in the offshore deep-sea regions, especially in light of the rising oil prices. Different studies and projects on the ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC) technology, which operates the power generation facilities using the temperature difference between the deep-sea water and the sea surface water, are currently being undertaken. In this study, various methods of applying the OTEC technology to a floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) facility installed in a deep-sea area were simulated and analyzed. In the closed cycle, a 1595.5 kW net power generation capacity was obtained. In the open cycle, a 863.5 kW generating capacity and 54.4 m3/h fresh water were obtained. In the hybrid cycle, a 643 kW generating capacity and 55.1 m3/h fresh water were obtained. In addition, the cooling water of the heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning systems (HVACs) obtained using deep-sea water cooling was also investigated. Ultimately, a 100 MW OTEC power plant was designed, and the required seawater amount and operating fluid capacity were confirmed. Considering the similarity of OTEC power generation facilities and FPSOs, the conversion of an FPSO in the deep-sea region to an OTEC power generation facility after the end of the life of the FPSO was proposed. It will be an alternative way of addressing two important issues: the need for petroleum resource development considering the limited petroleum resources that are currently available, and the need to ensure the sustainable development of countries.

OTEC Potential of East Nusa Tenggara Province in Indonesia

Indonesia is the largest archipelago country in the world, located between Indian Ocean and Pacific Ocean. Indonesia has more than 17000 islands with 70 per cent of the region is ocean. The Growth of the economic and population in Indonesia increasing the demand of the electricity annually, in 2015 alone electricity consumption in Indonesia reaching 200 TWh and will continue increasing every year. However, East Nusa Tenggara Province electrification ratio only around 58.64%, this is the second lowest ratio in Indonesia. This electrification ratio describes the level of availability of electrical energy for the community. Power Plant with renewable source placement in East Nusa Tenggara Province or smaller district need to be prioritise to cope with the low electrification ratio. Renewable sources for power plant have a good potential to work with, in example wind power, solar power, geothermal, or biomass. In addition, another renewable source that not yet known is from the ocean itself. Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) is one of the renewable source method from ocean. This paper will uncover the potential of OTEC in East Nusa Tenggara province so it will bring possibility to build an OTEC power plant in the future.

Injection power cycle applied in OTEC power plants

Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) power plants use the natural temperature differences found in the ocean of tropical regions to drive turbines that create electricity.A thermal compressor (injector) applied in a power cycle allows extension of expansion of a working fluid. Therefore, the unique feature of the Injection Power Cycle (IPC) is that the maximal temperature difference of the working fluid in a power cycle is greater than the temperature difference between a heat source and a heat sink. This results in the increase of pressure drop and technical work of the working fluid during its expansion.Furthermore, the OTEC power can be used:• for seawater desalination and production of enough potable water to support large populations located near the coast and• to produce energy carriers such as Hydrogen (stored in HYDRNOL: Organic Liquid Storage), which can be shipped to areas not close to OTEC resources. This could be fuel for thermal power plants, as well as for internal combustion vehicles, such as gas turbines and reciprocating engines. The ability to store and transport hydrogen within a liquid carrier at standard (room) temperature and atmospheric pressure provides many advantages over current hydrogen storage methods. The need for large, heavy storage tanks is eliminated. Major changes in the fuelling infrastructure of the world are avoided. The risk for explosion is minimized since the hydrogen is stored within a molecule and not in its elemental form. Furthermore, it is less flammable than gasoline or diesel. Also, HYDRANOL is cost effective when compared to traditional (fossil) fuels.