{"id":1142,"date":"2014-09-12T13:15:08","date_gmt":"2014-09-12T13:15:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/teresadawson.wordpress.com\/?p=676"},"modified":"2014-09-12T13:15:08","modified_gmt":"2014-09-12T13:15:08","slug":"another-chapter-in-otec-research-on-the-verge-of-opening-at-nelha","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/?p=1142","title":{"rendered":"Another Chapter in OTEC Research on the Verge of Opening at NELHA"},"content":{"rendered":"
The Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawai`i was Ground Zero for ocean-thermal energy conversion (OTEC) experiments for most of the first two decades of its life. In fact, OTEC development was one of the main reasons \u2013 if not\u00a0the<\/i>\u00a0reason \u2013 for the lab\u2019s existence.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Now, after more than a decade of OTEC\u2019s conspicuous absence from the Keahole facility, on the Kona Coast of the Big Island, OTEC research may be poised for a comeback. And, to tie the knot on this closing circle, the company that is proposing to do the research is the same one involved building the only floating, net-power-producing plant built to date \u2013 the Mini-OTEC project of 1979.At the March board meeting of the Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawai`i Authority, engineer Reb Bellinger of Makai Ocean Engineering made a pitch for giving Makai a permit to use NELHA facilities for research and development of heat exchangers, critical components of OTEC technology.<\/p>\n

Makai, Bellinger told the NELHA board, teamed up with Lockheed Martin after the Office of Naval Research awarded a contract to Makai to look into evaluating the technical and financial challenges of building a large-scale OTEC plant that would produce hydrogen or other alternative fuel. Over the last few years, about $10 million has been invested in the project, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis has probably been the most detailed, thorough, cautious look at putting OTEC on a commercial scale that\u2019s been done in the last thirty to forty years,\u201d he told the NELHA board. \u201cWe\u2019re a conservative, cautious bunch, not into wild claims. We do things systematically.\u201d<\/p>\n

Makai announced last year that it was proposing to build a 10-megawatt plant three to four miles offshore of O`ahu as a demonstration of OTEC technology. The reason for the relatively small project, said Bellinger, is that 10 MW \u201cis a size we can get operating experience on, and it\u2019s scalable \u2013 that\u2019s the key thing, it has to be scalable.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce that\u2019s done, 100 megawatts is what we\u2019ve calculated to be the smallest commercially viable size,\u201d he said. \u201cWe think the private sector will finance it. But to get there, there\u2019s a lot of work in the interim.\u201d<\/p>\n

That work includes \u201cbig technology issues,\u201d Bellinger said. \u201cHeat exchangers, cold-water pipes, cable-to-shore systems, environmental impacts, financing \u2013 those are some of the real challenges.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of those, marine heat exchangers \u201care probably the single most important technical challenge for commercial development of OTEC,\u201d he said, with heat exchangers representing about a third of the $100 billion cost of a 100 megawatt plant.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s where NELHA comes into the picture.<\/p>\n

No Power Plant<\/b><\/i><\/p>\n

What Makai wants at NELHA is a site for research on heat exchangers, not a site for a plant. That seemed to disappoint some of the board members, prompting Bellinger to explain that given the giant footprint of a commercial-scale plant, basing one on land was hardly practical.<\/p>\n

But for research, he said, NELHA \u2013 specifically, its pipelines reaching into the deep ocean \u2013 was ideally suited. \u201cThere\u2019s no place in the world except here where research and development for heat exchangers can be conducted at an economic scale.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cA 100-megawatt plant would have over 200 sets of heat exchangers, each one about the size of a 20-foot container,\u201d he said. \u201cBeing able to test, to experiment with designs for corrosion, how to manufacture heat exchangers, we need a place like this where we have offshore conditions\u201d similar to those under which an OTEC plant would have to operate.<\/p>\n

Members of NELHA\u2019s Research Advisory Committee had looked over the proposal and on the whole were enthusiastically in support. Don Thomas, chairman of the committee, said that one concern raised was the possible impact of pumping up deep, nutrient-rich ocean water and then releasing it into the shallow near-shore area. \u201cWe need to get some handle on what type of impact nutrient cycling will have,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re mindful of the fact that in large plants, there will be a large volume of water moving around,\u201d Bellinger said. But in an operating plant, \u201cdeep water will be returned to the deep, and it won\u2019t be heated up too much, so it will still be heavy and will sink.\u201d In near-shore operations, he said, \u201cwe don\u2019t want to take nutrient-rich cold water and simply dump it on the reef.\u201d<\/p>\n

To resolve this issue, one of NELHA\u2019s aquaculture tenants might be willing to receive the deep-ocean water discharges from the Makai research area, members of the board suggested.<\/p>\n

Another issue raised by the RAC was how NELHA might share in the value of any \u201cintellectual property\u201d that Makai develops as a result of its work at the facility.<\/p>\n

Since executive director Ron Baird took over the helm of NELHA, the push to get equity positions and\/or a claim on any marketable patent or license developed by its tenants has been strong. And it has not always worked out. Early on in Baird\u2019s tenure, a simple pass-through grant (result of an earmark put into the federal budget by Senator Daniel Inouye) to a New Mexico institution became so snarled up by Baird\u2019s insistence on having a claim to intellectual property that, in the end, the earmarked funds were redirected, cutting NELHA out of the picture altogether.<\/p>\n

More recently, a proposal to build an OTEC plant at NELHA by an O`ahu-based company, OCEES, ran aground. At least part of the reason for the foundering had to do with Baird\u2019s desire to have NELHA obtain an equity stake in the company. For now, though, the discussions between Makai and NELHA are continuing.<\/p>\n

Past Overtures<\/b><\/i><\/p>\n

In recent years, Makai had been considering NELHA as a possible site for OTEC research, but had been concerned that commitments to OCEES might shut that door.<\/p>\n

In July 2007, Makai vice president Joe Van Ryzin and Lockheed Martin\u2019s Robert Varley asked the NELHA board to defer committing to the construction of any OTEC power generation facility.<\/p>\n

\u201cBe aware of the oncoming OTEC research-and-development need,\u201d Van Ryzin said. \u201cRealize that you possess a unique, incredibly valuable facility. You\u2019ve got the only show in town, and you should position yourself to take advantage of that.\u201d A power-producing OTEC plant, he warned, would mean the end of any hope of using NELHA facilities for research.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

Patricia Tummons<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

Volume 19, Number 10 — April 2009<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawai`i was Ground Zero for ocean-thermal energy conversion (OTEC) experiments for most of the first two decades of its life. In fact, OTEC development was one of the main reasons – if not the reason – for … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[83],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1142","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-april-2009"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1142","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1142"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1142\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}