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"Does it open a new horizon for my thinking? Does it lead me to think new kinds of thoughts, that I would not otherwise perhaps have thought at all? These qualities are what [make] science fiction ...unique."
- Frederik Pohl
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| Oceanic Thermal Energy Converter | ||
| A device that uses the sea to help create electricity. |
This novel provides a fully realized version of a technology that is only just being explored today; on an average day, the tropical seas of Earth absorb solar energy equivalent to 250 billion barrels of oil.
| The immense grid of the Oceanic Thermal Energy Converter appeared above them. Distantly the announcer discussed the OTEC generators and how power for Xanadu - and for export in the form of methane and liquid hydrogen - was extracted by harvesting the ocean's heat differential. Engineering geeks .. clustered in fascination. |
| Technovelgy from Saturn's Race,
by Larry Niven (w/S. Barnes). Published by Tor in 2000 Additional resources -
|
Harvesting thermal energy from the ocean was first proposed in 1881 by Jacques Arsene d'Arsonval, a French physicist. The first demonstration unit to produce real net power was a closed-cycle plant in Hawaii; it created 15 kWe of net power.
Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) is a real technology in the process of being developed:
"OTEC, or ocean thermal energy conversion, is an energy technology that converts solar radiation to electric power. OTEC systems use the ocean's natural thermal gradient—the fact that the ocean's layers of water have different temperatures—to drive a power-producing cycle. As long as the temperature between the warm surface water and the cold deep water differs by about 20°C (36°F), an OTEC system can produce a significant amount of power. The oceans are thus a vast renewable resource, with the potential to help us produce billions of watts of electric power."
(from the National Renewable Energy Lab's OTEC page.)
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'And he had been sent with troops, supplies and bombs to command Russia's most trusted post, the Moonbase.'
'What is your population', I asked. 'About eighty millions.'
'THE autobus turned silently down the wide street of Hydropole. Robot-guided, insulated from noise and cold...'
'The car had no steering wheel, and no one drove!'
Now that's power walking that Hugo Gernsback would have approved.
'It was disturbing to think of the Flatline as a construct...'
'...he rewired the delivery robot so that it would serve him midnight snacks.'
'On went the electric-yacht faster and still faster.'
'...the huge vessel had spun, with a sickening lurch, through a complete half-circle, the instant the power was reversed.'
'...he realized that it was not quite a clear lens. Speckles of colored brightness swirled and gathered in it.'
