Wind Energy

Wind has been used for centuries to generate power and this potential is again coming to the fore.

As stated above, the temperature of the oceans at a depth below 500 m is not expected to significantly change as a consequence of global warming. The OTEC heat engine requires cool ocean waters as a heat sink to condense the a low-boling-point fluid boiled by the warm surface waters. One viable and sustainable way to pump this water from the depths of the ocean is to harness the wind energy far out to sea. The diagram to the right depicts three different concepts for anchoring wind turbines offshore where the turbine can be moored using ballast stabilization, mooring line stabilization or buoyancy stabilization.

An OTEC generator is constructed beneath the surface of the ocean. Such a generator could be incorporated into and form part of both a ballast for a floating wind turbine and a buoyancy stabilizer for the floating wind turbine.

On shore desert winds can also provide some portion of the power required to pump desalinated ocean water inland to irrigate hot deserts.

The technology for producing wind energy is well known and does not form a part of this inventive concept. It is an objective of the current invention however, to use wind energy to pump cool ocean waters from below 500 m ocean depths for use in the OTEC process and to pump desalinated water into the hot deserts for irrigation purposes.