Subnostr

The incredible power of OTEC - & How it works so well with Bitcoin

https://bitcoinmagazine.com/business/bitcoin-unlocks-ocean-energy

Of all the technologies that get me excited for the future of Seasteading, OTEC (Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion) really gets my heart pumping. It's a 100-year old tech that generates energy out in the deep sea by sucking up cold water from the deep & using the difference in water temperatures to generate power.

Sadly, this 100-year-old, working technology has never been scaled up all the way to practical usage because who needs tons of energy out in the deep sea? People who also have lots of oil? Yeah, so nobody has ever invested what it takes to make this tech fully viable. The energy is just too stranded.

Both Bitcoiners and Seasteaders have their own important reasons to resurrect this line of research, however. Bitcoiners could not only use the stranded energy that this produces to mine with, but all of that freezing water up pumped up to the surface would be an INCREDIBLE cooling source for our mining rigs!

Meanwhile, seasteaders have quite an opportunity to use this tech as a main source of energy for our daily operations, and such a colony would then become an ideal base of operations for seabed mining of manganese nodules! Bringing up these little lumps of near-precious metals would make any seastead rich beyond our wildest dreams. Check out this video if you're not familiar with the opportunity: https://youtu.be/9Af_XA507Ho

The synergy of a seastead powered by OTEC that both mines bitcoin and the seabed floor is simply incredible, offering the understated income opportunity of the century. At the very least, it's a solid reason for Seasteads to exist, & a cause for people on those seabeds to live in comfort & wealth, not just be a glorified fishing platform.

We bitcoiners even have a head start down this road. OceanBit CEO Nathaniel Harmon (X: @NateHawaii) is working on scaling up an OTEC energy plant in Hawaii and is an outspoken Bitcoiner who realizes that bitcoin's use of stranded energy is key to getting the job done. Read the article about him in Bitcoin Magazine to see how incredible this opportunity really is: https://bitcoinmagazine.com/business/bitcoin-unlocks-ocean-energy

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Discussion

Low Information Voter 2y ago

The real problem with OTEC is the minimum scale for viability. Probably hundreds of billions of dollars.

The theoretical maximum efficiency of any heat engine is the Carnot Limit: (hot side temperature - cold side temperature) / hot side temperature, all measured in degrees Kelvin, or degrees Rankine if you're USian.

For a gas turbine, this can approach 70%. For OTEC, its low single figures.

Then subtract friction, biofouling and corrosion. The numbers are only remotely positive if you go huge. Visible-from-the-Moon huge.