[extropy-chat] FWD [PvT] Re: Anti-hurricane engineering

[Hara Ra]

Not quite.... The cold water is denser than the warm and must be lifted 
before dilution. The volumes needed are substantial. (If the surface 
temperature is 25deg C {78.5 degF) and the temperature at 100 meters is 5 
deg C (41 degF) the needed lift is about a meter, assuming a linear 
temperature gradient. If you do a 10x dilution, the energy cost is about 27 
Kwh per square kilometer. 1 million km^2 is probably needed. This is a 
negligible heat load but a significant ($2.7 million at $100 /Mwh) power 
cost for the lifting alone. I doubt that air bubbles would be even 10% 
efficient, and the numbers I selected are deliberately low - surface 
temperatures of 90 degF are common.)

> > Where do you dump the very substantial waste heat from the pumping
> > operation?  This idea reads as thermodynamically untenable to me.
>
>If it were so, then OTEC systems could never generate any power. Fact
>is that the pumping generates negligible waste heat, and even then, the
>secret is *DILUTION*.

>Mike Lorrey

==================================
=   Hara Ra (aka Gregory Yob)    =
=     harara at sbcglobal.net       =
=   Alcor North Cryomanagement   =
=   Alcor Advisor to Board       =
=       831 429 8637             =
==================================