As the world's energy resources become increasingly strained, people have discovered that the ocean is a huge energy treasure trove by exploring exploitable energy sources. Hundreds of years ago, humans began using tides to generate electricity. In recent years, technology that uses waves and tidal currents to generate electricity has also begun to be adopted and achieved practical application results in some places. However, there is more to exploring people than just that. Some scientists further proposed the idea of using the difference in seawater temperature to generate electricity and predicted that if this technology was successful, it could meet around 20% of the world's energy demand.
The ocean is a huge collector and storage of thermal energy from solar radiation. Surface water temperaturecan reach 20℃~30℃; while the temperature of deep sea water is close to zero degrees Celsius. Scientists are considering using surface seawater to heat a liquid with a very low boiling point, such as liquid ammonia, using the steam produced by the liquid ammonia to drive a turbogenerator to produce electricity and using underwater cables to transport the electricity to where it is located. necessary. At the same time, low-temperature seawater pumped from the depths of the sea is used to cool the ammonia vapor and reduce it to a liquid state. By recycling and thus using the difference in seawater temperature, you can continue to produce electricity. The advantage of this method of generating electricity is that it is not affected by weather conditions and provides stable power output. It is particularly suitable for areass tropical and subtropical maritime areas. According to the research and demonstrations carried out by competent experts, it is possible to build a power plant with a power of 100,000 kilowatts using the temperature difference of sea water.
Using seawater temperature differences to generate electricity is of great importance for the development of marine resources. For example, it can provide power to equipment that extracts seabed oil and polymetallic nodules, and can melt minerals extracted from the seabed. on site, saving you money. It can be seen that the scientific exploration of using sea water temperature differences to generate electricity has shown a bright prospect for humanity to obtain energy from the ocean.