[Coral-List] OTEC at Guam

Fri Jun 26 14:46:01 UTC 2020

There is an OTEC facility on the Big Island of Hawaii that has been in
operation for over 30 years. It was the success of this pilot plant that
led to the plans for the operation on Oahu but then oil prices dropped and
it was deemed not to be financially viable to build and operate since the
electricity it generated could not be competitively priced. Talk about poor
foresight given today's oil prices.

*J. Charles Delbeek, M.Sc.*Curator, Steinhart Aquarium
California Academy of Sciences

Desk: 415.379.5303
Fax: 415.379.5304

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On Fri, Jun 26, 2020 at 5:50 AM Steve Coles via Coral-List <
coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov> wrote:

> There's been a lot of conjecture in these emails but very little real
> informati. A 400MW OTEC was under consideration to be built on leeward Oahu
> back in the early 80's and I did a submersible survey of the best
> probable route down the slope off the Kahe Poewer plant. Planning and
> environmental studies were done and you can find two at
> https://swfsc.noaa.gov/publications/TM/SWFSC/NOAA-TM-NMFS-SWFC-68.PDF "THE
> 40 MW, OTEC PLANT AT KAHE POINT, OAHU, HAWAII: A CASE STUDY OF POTENTIAL
> BIOLOGICAL IMPACTS, and
>
> http://hinmrec.hnei.hawaii.edu/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/Environmental-Assessment-of-OTEC-in-Hawaii1.pdf
>  "Environmental Assessment of Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion in Hawaii"
> and lots more by Google searching the topic.
>
> Basically, a temperature differential of 18 deg C would be sufficient
> to run the system, which for Hawaiian waters would require the deep water
> intake to be at  670 m where temperature is 5.3 deg. C and surface water
> which averages 25.3 deg C. The amount of water required to be moved would
> be huge, ca 500 cu m/sec for both intakes. The effluent mixed from both
> sources would be denser than surface water, released at 60 m depth and have
> little or no chance of impacting shoreline coral reefs if properly
> designed.
>
> Steve Coles
>
> <
> http://hinmrec.hnei.hawaii.edu/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/Environmental-Assessment-of-OTEC-in-Hawaii1.pdf
> >
> <
> https://www.google.com/search?q=.+A+report+on+the+development+of+pilot+plant+for+ocean+thermal+energy+conversion+at+Kahe+Point,+Oahu,+Hawaii.+Hawaii+State+Dept.+of+Planning+and+Economic+Development,+Honolulu&rlz=1C1CHBF_enUS739US739&sxsrf=ALeKk02GUuvRf4Uw7Dw_ZEBLqC6SZDvrTQ:1593118597227&ei=hQ_1Xo-nDa-z0PEP2uW9uAg&start=10&sa=N&ved=2ahUKEwjP_cmg7Z3qAhWvGTQIHdpyD4cQ8tMDegQICxAt&biw=980&bih=952#
> >
>
>    1.
>    <
> http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:yr8OIsFLU_QJ:hinmrec.hnei.hawaii.edu/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/Environmental-Assessment-of-OTEC-in-Hawaii1.pdf+&cd=15&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us
> >
>    2.
>    <
> https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C1CHBF_enUS739US739&biw=980&bih=952&sxsrf=ALeKk02fx8OZyNjHCv3LZBg57N3QgpGErg:1593119929189&q=related:hinmrec.hnei.hawaii.edu/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/Environmental-Assessment-of-OTEC-in-Hawaii1.pdf+.+A+report+on+the+development+of+pilot+plant+for+ocean+thermal+energy+conversion+at+Kahe+Point,+Oahu,+Hawaii.+Hawaii+State+Dept.+of+Planning+and+Economic+Development,+Honolulu&tbo=1&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjEytqb8p3qAhWTIDQIHT2GDtY4ChAfMAR6BAgBEAc
> >
>
>
>
> On Thu, Jun 25, 2020 at 2:32 AM Zink, Ian Christopher via Coral-List <
> coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov> wrote:
>
> >
> > Apologies if it has already been mentioned, but there has been an OTEC
> > operating on the Big Island of Hawai'i for a number of years; presumably
> > there would be some EIS or similar studies associated with impacts of its
> > operation.
> > -Ian
> >
> >
> >
> > ________________________________
> > From: Coral-List <coral-list-bounces at coral.aoml.noaa.gov> on behalf of
> > Michael J. Gawel via Coral-List <coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov>
> > Sent: Wednesday, June 24, 2020 3:12 AM
> > To: coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov <coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov>
> > Cc: Meesters, Erik <erik.meesters at wur.nl>
> > Subject: [Coral-List] OTEC at Guam
> >
> > For  Erik Meesters request on OTEC impact studies.
> > Some areas for Erik to research for references, if he hasn't yet, would
> be
> > in the tropical Pacific OTEC research.
> > The Government of Guam has studied potential OTEC development since the
> > 1970's. The University of Guam Marine Lab scientists have done local
> > temperature and bathymetry studies for OTEC decades ago including a 1980
> > thesis by D.M. Rowley on biofouling communities at the proposed Guam OTEC
> > site. Guam Power Authority has done more recent analysis on OTEC related
> > potentials. I believe intake depths were calculated for maybe 1,200 feet
> > depth and any piping would have to cross reefs with high coral diversity.
> > The discharge from OTEC facilities apparently would have to be very deep
> > to avoid impacts to reef life. Directional drilling has been used for
> > sewer outfalls on Guam to avoid impacts on reef habitats and probably
> > would be applied for OTEC piping.
> > OTEC studies at Hainan and Taiwan may have considered coral reef impacts
> > and the 1980's Japanese trial on Nauru of OTEC technology crossed coral
> > reefs for intake and may have had impact studies. Sorry I haven't been
> > able to search references for these.
> >
> > Mike Gawel
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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> >
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