FLORIDA’S WEALTH OF NEW ENERGY

Is the ocean Florida's untapped energy source?
Azadeh Ansari, July 27, 2009 (CNN)

SUMMARY
Hydrokinetic energy is the harnessing of the motion of water to capture the energy and use it to generate electricity. For most of the coastal world, that means wave energy and tidal energy.

In Florida, hydrokinetics means the unique power of the Gulf Stream. Florida Atlantic University Center for Ocean Energy Technology researchers are determined to harness it.

The Gulf Stream flows from the Caribbean Sea along Florida’s East Coast and all the way to the upper-North Atlantic.

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With the potential to generate 4-to-10 GIGAwatts of steady, certain, 24/7, 365-day energy, they calculate the Gulf Stream could meet as much as 1/3 of the state’s electricity demand, run 3-to-7 million Florida homes and eliminate the need to build 4-to-10 new nuclear power plants.

Though it has been ridden for centuries by explorers, fishermen and sailors, the Gulf Stream will not be easy to harness.

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Ocean engineering researchers at the Center are working with marine, environmental and material scientists to develop cost-competitive technologies capable of being deployed at commercial scale.

First steps: In April, FAU researchers took a major step beyond theory by placing 4 acoustic Doppler current profilers in the Guilf Stream. They are essentially big orange balls. Submerged, the balls use high frequency, low-power sonar to measure the currents’ speeds and variabilities.

The goal is to deploy a 20-kilowatt underwater test turbine by spring 2010. Based on the results the test, the researchers will design a turbine sturdy enough to withstand the forces of the Gulf Stream and the underwater ocean environment.

From FAU’s Center for Ocean Energy Technology via CNN

COMMENTARY
The CEO of one of the U.S.’s veteran New Energy-innovating companies once confided to NewEnergyNews that its experiments in capturing the power of the Gulf Stream in days gone by had resulted in mangled turbines. Such is the potency of the energy available and the challenge in harnessing it.

A consistent challenge and the cause of unsuccessful attempts around the world to turn hydrokinetic forces into electricity is the power of the offshore world to wear out, ruin and wreck the best human-made devices. Turbines like the ones the FAU ocean engineers are planning to use have proven uniquely vulnerable.

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The FAU Center's plan is to place small turbines in the current. The flowing water will spin the blades, cranking a generator. The electricity will either be carried to shore via seabed cables or transform ocean water molecules into hydrogen that can be stored at the turbine site.

The good news is that aside from a method of delivering the electricity from the Gulf Stream where it is generated to the shore, there will be little need for long distance tranmission. Unlike wind installations in the Midwest or solar power plants in the Southwest, the market for Gulf Stream current energy is right at Florida’s seashore.

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Florida is the 4th most populous U.S. state but 3rd in total energy consumption. Long famous as the Waiting Room for the Next Life, it has wonderful beaches for the elderly because they are threatened little by coastal winds or crashing surf. So much for wind and wave energy to generate the power to run seniors’ air conditioners and heart monitors.

FAU's Center is also exploring two cutting edge types of ocean energy,(1) the potential of the Ocean Thermal Energy that can be generated by capturing the energy from the temperature gradient between the warm surface waters and deep cold waters off the state's coasts, and (2) the potential of using the cold in the deep waters as a sea water air conditioning system.

Schematic of Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) system. (click to enlarge)

Florida does not have Old Energy sources like coal and natural gas. The state has built nuclear reactors but its population is not enthusiastic about nuclear energy. Gainesville, Florida, recently instituted one of the first U.S. feed-in tariffs, a policy measure designed to drive more solar energy development.

The rationale for Gainesville's Feed-in tariff. (click to enlarge)

The remaining big question about Gulf Stream current energy: The FAU ocean engineers are confident they can create the technology to capture the power. The question is, at what cost? They do not yet have an answer to that question.

Related unanswered questions are, what will the environmental impacts be? And how much will it cost to mitigate them?

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The energy harvesting cannot begin at commercial scale until there are answers.

The state of Florida will spend $13.75 million on the pilot project to get preliminary answers. A commercial scale project will certainly cost far more than that. But the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) would also have to approve a commercial scale project, after looking at impacts on wild and marine life, impacts on recreational activities and shipping, and at other environmental factors. Such a project is likely 5-to-10 years beyond the completion of the pilot project.

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QUOTES
- Sue Skemp, executive director, Florida Atlantic University Center for Ocean Energy Technology: "The predictions at this point estimate that the strength of the Gulf Stream could generate anywhere between four to 10 gigawatts of power, the equivalent of four to 10 nuclear power plants..."
- Skemp: "It's not like an established industry, like the aerospace industry or the automotive industry or others, where you have models which you could base cost on..."

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- Frederick Driscoll, director, Florida Atlantic University Center of Excellence in Ocean Energy Technology: "Right now in Florida, we are at the cusp of an energy crisis. Our energy demand keeps growing..."
- Driscoll: "First we have to do a resource assessment and understand how much energy is in the Gulf Stream current on a minute-to-minute, day-to-day, hour-to-hour and yearly basis..."
- Driscoll: "We are looking at how much energy we can safely extract -- what is the sensitivity of extraction versus the environmental effects?"
- Jeremy Susac, executive director, Florida Energy and Climate Commission: "The Gulf Stream is the strongest current in the world, so we want to harness our greatest resource. It's renewable, emission free and reliable..."