Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) was conceived of by the French engineer Jacques D’Arsonval in 1881. However, at the time of this writing the Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii is home to the only operating experimental OTEC plant on the face of the earth. OTEC is a potential alternative energy source that needs to be funded and explored much more than it presently is. The great hurdle to get over with OTEC implementation on a wide and practically useful level is cost. It is difficult to get the costs down to a reasonable level because of the processes presently utilized to drive OTEC. Ocean thermal energy would be very clean burning and not add pollutants into the air. However, as it presently would need to be set up with our current technologies, OTEC plants would have the capacity for disrupting and perhaps damaging the local environment.
There are three kinds of OTEC.
“Closed Cycle OTEC” uses a low-boiling point liquid such as, for example, propane to act as an intermediate fluid. The OTEC plant pumps the warm sea water into the reaction chamber and boils the intermediate fluid. This results in the intermediate fluid’s vapor pushing the turbine of the engine, which thus generates electricity. The vapor is then cooled down by putting in cold sea water.
“Open Cycle OTEC” is not that different from closed cycling, except in the Open Cycle there is no intermediate fluid. The sea water itself is the driver of the turbine engine in this OTEC format. Warm sea water found on the surface of the ocean is turned into a low-pressure vapor under the constraint of a vacuum. The low-pressure vapor is released in a focused area and it has the power to drive the turbine. To cool down the vapor and create desalinated water for human consumption, the deeper ocean’s cold waters are added to the vapor after it has generated sufficient electricity.
“Hybrid Cycle OTEC” is really just a theory for the time being. It seeks to describe the way that we could make maximum usage of the thermal energy of the ocean’s waters. There are actually two sub-theories to the theory of Hybrid Cycling. The first involves using a closed cycling to generate electricity. This electricity is in turn used to create the vacuum environment needed for open cycling. The second component is the integration of two open cycling’s such that twice the amount of desalinated, potable water is created that with just one open cycle.
In addition to being used for producing electricity, a closed cycle OTEC plant can be utilized for treating chemicals. OTEC plants, open cycling and close cycling kinds, are also able to be utilized for pumping up cold deep sea water which can then be used for refrigeration and air conditioning. Furthermore, during the moderation period when the sea water is surrounding the plant, the enclosed are can be used for mariculture and aquaculture projects such as fish farming. There is clearly quite an array of products and services that we could derive from this alternative energy source.
530 BC -. Studying astronomy the ancient Greeks theorized of the southern region of earth. The constellation Ursa Major – the great bear – found in the northern hemisphere was also referred by the Greeks as Arktos meaning “of the north”. Understanding mathematics and symmetry the Greeks theorized Antarktikos meaning “opposite of north”.
7th Century – Sailing south to where “white rock-like forms grew out of a frozen sea” a Raratongan traveler, Ui-te-Rangiara, was the first traveler below the Antarctic Circle according to Polynesian lore.
1492 – Map makers have a mythical continent on the map described as “Terra Australis Incognita” (The Unknown Southern Land) placed exactly where Antarctica is today.
1772 – Ice-bound islands in the southern Indian Ocean now identified as Iles Kerguelen were discovered by Yves Joseph de Kerguelen-Tremarec.
1773 - The Antarctic Circle was crossed for the first time by Captain James Cook in the ships Resolution and Adventure. Captain Cook’s crew eventually circumnavigates Antarctica crossing the Antarctic Circle 3 times.
1820 – On January 28, Russian Admiral Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen and his deputy Mikhail Petrovich Lazarev approached the Antarctic coast at the coordinates 69o21’28”S and 2o14’50”W. On January 30, a British Officer, Edward Bransfield sighted two high mountains covered with snow (later named Mount Bransfield) along Trinity Peninsula the northern most portion of the Antarctic Peninsula. On November 17, American Sealer Nathaniel Palmer, captain of the ship Hero, sights the Antarctic continent and is the first American to set foot on the Antarctic continent.
1821 – On February 7, Captain John Davis a sealer from Connecticut and his crew from the American sealing ship, Cecilia, claim to have landed on the Antarctic continent for less than a hour at Hughes Bay (64°01′S) looking for seals.
1830 – A race of expeditions begins to the magnetic poles.
1831 – The North Magnetic Pole had been discovered.
1838 – 1842 American lieutenant Charles Wilkes proves that Antarctica is a continent by identifying over 1500 miles of coast along the area now named Wilkes Land.
1840 Adelie Land was discovered by French explorer Jules Sébastien César Dumont d’Urville, who named it after his wife, Adélie.
1841 – Great Britain sailor James Clark Ross sailed into what is now known as the Ross Sea. Ross determined the approximate position of the South Magnetic Pole but was unable to reach it. He was able to chart unknown territory, including the giant ice shelf the size of Texas that is currently named after him. Ross founded and named Cape Adare after Viscount Adare.
1874 – On a four-year (1872-1876) scientific expedition, the HMS Challenger crosses the Antarctic Circle and is the first steamship to ever do this. This expedition is to lay the foundation for modern oceanography.
1895 – The first landing site ever on the continent was in January at Cape Adare from the ship, Antarctic, led by Norwegian Henryk Johann Bull, Carsten Borchgrevink, and Leonard Kristensen. This expeditionary party was whalers looking for Southern Right Whales.
1898 – The first party to live through the winter trapped in pack-ice at the Antarctic Peninsula under a Belgian Adrien de Gerlache and the Belgica expedition. Among those in the party were Raold Amundsen, Dr. Frederick Cook, and Henry Arctowski. Their ship the Belgica became ice-bound off the Antarctic Peninsula, and they were forced to spend 13 months drifting in pack ice.
1899 – Cape Adare in Victoria Land had the first men to winter in pre-fabricated huts on the continent under Carsten Borchgrevink and a member of the Southern Cross expedition.
1902 – Robert Scott, Edward Wilson, and Ernest Shakelton leave McMurdo Sound for the first real attempt to reach the South Pole. At 82 degrees south, within 450 miles (720 km) they are forced to return home.
1905-7 – International Geophysical Congress, meeting in London, decides to make Antarctica the main target of future exploration. Parties from Britain, Germany, and Sweden are organized. Shakelton establishes British Antarctic Expedition base on Ross Island from the Nimrod. After wintering on Ross Island, Ernest Shakelton and a team of three others sledged within 97 nautical miles (155 km) of the South Geographic Pole. Along the way Shakelton and his team made the first ascent on the summit of Mount Erebus, the 12,448 ft (3794 m) active volcano on Ross Island. Near the Pole Shakelton determined that his Team was not sufficiently equipped, so they turned around to be safe.
1908 - While Ernest Shakelton, Frank Wild, Eric Marshall, and Jameson Adams begin their attempt to reach the geographic south pole, others members of the same expedition including Australian Douglas Mawson and Edgeworth David, and a Scottish doctor Alistair McKay, set out from the winter quarters on Ross Island on their journey of over 1200 miles on foot, without animal support to reach the geomagnetic south pole. On January 1908, Mawson and his team raised the British Flag over the geomagnetic South Pole.
1910 – Norwegian Roald Amundsen was suppose to head for the North Pole, but took his ship to the South Pole instead. Robert Scott’s second expedition returns to Ross Island. Scott sets out in the spring for the South Pole.
1911 – Amundsen party set up their base at the Bay of Whales that was 69 miles (105 km) closer to the pole than Scott’s base on Ross Island. The Norwegians set out 13 days before Scott and had added the advantage of 59 husky dogs hauling their sleds. Scott used ponies as well as dogs. The ponies were not adapted to hauling on the soft snow, and the dogs were only used in support. On December 14, 1911, after 57 days, Admundsen’s team reached the geographic South Pole with four companions and 18 of the 59 dogs. Amundsen plants the Norwegian Flag on the South Pole. Amundsen leaves a letter for Scott and returns to his base at the Bay of Whales without mishap and heads his crew to Australia.
1911 – Douglas Mawson Australian Antarctic Expedition (AAE) departs Hobart aboard the Aurora bound for Macquarie Island.
1912 - Robert Falcon Scott, Bill Wilson, Henry “Birdie” Bowers, Edward Edgar Evans, and Lawrence ‘Titus’ Oates reach the South Pole one month after Amundsen’s team, and discover the Norwegian flag. With frost bite, ‘Titus Oates” realizes that he was slowing the party down, and walked out of his tent never to be seen again. The rest of the party struggled on, but was eventually pinned down for eight days by bad weather, ironically just 11 miles (18 km) from their “one-ton” supply depot. They all perished.
1913 – Australian Douglas Mawson and six other are forced to spend a second winter at Cape Denison in Commonwealth Bay. From Dawson 1908 expedition with Shakelton, Dawson wanted to explore the Area of Antarctica south of Australia. This AAE journey is regarded as the one of the greatest polar scientific expeditions of all times because of the detailed observations in magnetism, geology, biology, and meteorology. . During this expedition Mawson overcame starvation, poisoning, blizzards, and innumerable falls into gaping crevasses as he struggled back alone to the Winter Quarters at Cape Denison, following the deaths of his sledging companions Xavier Mertz and Belgrade Ninnis. While on the sledging expedition Ninnis, six dogs and the sled containing most of the food and equipment slipped down a large crevasse, and disappeared. Mawson and Mertz began the trek back to the base. With little food and a makeshift tent they were force to eat the remaining huskies to survive. One hundred miles from Cape Dennison, Mertz became delirious and eventually died. Mawson became very ill of Vitamin A poisoning from eating husky dog livers. Mawson finally struggled back to Cape Dennison to see the relief ship, the Aurora, disappearing over the horizon. Mawson and six others who had stayed behind to wait for Mawson and his men endured a second winter at the windiest place in the world before finally being rescued the following season.
1915 – Ernest Shakelton was set on crossing the Antarctic continent, but after being trapped in pack ice, is forced to abandon the Endurance, after it is crushed in the Weddell Sea after nine months. In 281 days, Shakelton’s were still 350 miles (560 km) from the coast. After numerous attempts to walk and haul their lifeboats to open water the 28 men of the Endurance are forced to camp on floating ice for five months eventually made camp and waited until the pack ice broke up in the spring before taking the boats to Elephant Island. Under the leadership of Shakeltons second in command, Frank Wild, most of the party spent 105 days of the bitter winter living under upturned boats eating seal meat.
Shakelton and a crew of 5 from Elephant Island navigated 800 miles (1300 km) in an 18 foot (6 m) boat called the James Caird to South Georgia, a whaling port. It took seventeen days in a freezing hurricane to reach South Georgia. Landing on the wrong side of the island, they were forced to cross the mountainous island on foot. No one had ever crossed this mountainous region. Shakelton and his crew of five men crossed the mountainous region with no supplies and no mountain climbing equipment and reached the Stromness whaling station. Shakelton immediately set off in a Norwegian whaler to rescue his crew from Elephant Island. Pack ice prevented the whaler from reaching Elephant Island. After a third attempt, with a Chilean steamer, Yelcho, the whole team was eventually rescued. Not a single life was lost.
1916 - The Ross sea support party fared worse. The ship was blown away from its moorings and the shore party was left with no supplies, except what remained in the hut from previous expeditions. The following spring, those left ashore still managed to lay out re-supply depots of rations they had pieced together, unaware of their fate of the Endurance on the other side of the continent.
In the process of returning to their winter quarters one of the Ross Sea support died of scurvy. Two others attempted to make a path to Cape Evans across newly formed sea ice, they were never seen again. The remaining party was rescued by the Aurora in January 1917.
1928 - Australian Hubert Wilkins Expedition makes the first flight in Antarctica from Deception Island across the Antarctic Peninsula in a Lockheed Vega monoplane. Wilkins successfully traversed most of the length of Graham Land.
1929 – Richard Bryd and three others take off in a Ford monoplane from the Bay of Whales and head to the South Pole. They become the first to fly over both poles in an airplane.
1934 – Richard Bryd begins his lone winter sojourn at his base 123 miles inland from the Bay of Whales. He is the first person to winter in the interior of the continent, but almost dies of carbon monoxide poisoning.
1935 – The first woman to set foot in the Antarctic continent was Caroline Mikkelsen, the wife of a Norwegian whaling captain, when she steps ashore at Vestfold Hills.
1940 – Little America III base is set up at the Bay of Whales under Richard Bryd.
1947 – United States Navy organizes operation High jump, bringing 4,000 men, 13 ships, and 23 aircraft to Antarctica. A base is set up at Little America. Icebreakers are used for the first time. Large areas of coastline and hinterland are mapped. The first women to winter over in Antarctica were Edith Ronnie and Jennie Darlinton, who accompanied their husbands on a private American expedition that made a base on Stonington Island on the Antarctic Peninsula.
Britain’s Vivian Fuchs team converted Ferguson farm tractors to cross the Antarctic from the Weddell Sea in the Fuchs Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition. Support party held by Sir Edmund Hillary led the way from Ross Island and reaches the South Pole with only 20 gallons (91 liters) of fuel remaining. Fuch’s team met up with Hillary’s Team and continues on to the Ross Sea. This is the first time the Antarctic continent was crossed.
1957– International Geophysical Year begins with Antarctica as the main study. During the next 18 months scientist from 67 countries combine for the geophysical year. The number of bases on the continent is increased from 28 to 40 bases. The Amundsen-Scott base is built by the United States as part of its Deepfreeze series of expeditions.
1959 – Antarctic Treaty is signed in Washington, DC with the 12 leading participant countries in the International geophysical Year. The Treaty states that Antarctica will be used for peaceful and scientific purposes. The Treaty comes into operation in 1961 and guarantees freedom of access and scientific studies in all areas south of 60 degrees latitude. The Treaty forms the international Scientific Committee for Antarctic Research (SCAR). It also holds in abeyance all claims to territories in this area.
1962 – A nuclear power plant is installed at McMurdo Base by the US Navy. The nuclear power plant has a history of fire, radiation leakage, and shutdowns, until it is finally decommissioned in 1972. It is six years before the site can be used again, after 101 barrels of contaminated rock are shipped back to the United States.
1965 – Antarctica tourism for the public begins. Luxury cruises are charted to the Antarctic Peninsula.
1978 – The first human born in Antarctica is from an Argentine base.
1979 – Air New Zealand DC 10 crashes in to Mt. Erebus carrying 257 people onboard that included tourist and crew. There are no survivors.
1989 Argentina ship Bahía Paraíso runs aground and sinks just outside Palmer Research Station on Anvers Island. The ship carried tourists and scientists, and was evacuated before it sank. The incident caused a spill of 160 thousand gallons of gasoline and oil, creating a slick covering 62 square miles. Molluscs, cormorants, penguins and other species were the fatal victims of that disaster. The oil slick is believed to have wiped out the blue-eyed shag population in the area.
by CHARLES J. HANLEY, AP Special Correspondent, December 14, 2009
COPENHAGEN – New computer modeling suggests the Arctic Ocean may be nearly ice-free in the summertime as early as 2014, Al Gore said Monday at the U.N. climate conference. This new projection, following several years of dramatic retreat by polar sea ice, suggests that the ice cap may nearly vanish in the summer much sooner than the year 2030, as was forecast by a U.S. government agency eight months ago.
One U.S. government scientist Monday questioned the new prediction as too severe, but other researchers previously have projected a quicker end than 2030 to the Arctic summer ice cap.
“It is hard to capture the astonishment that the experts in the science of ice felt when they saw this,” said former U.S. Vice President Gore, who joined Scandinavian officials and scientists to brief journalists and delegates. It was Gore’s first appearance at the two-week conference.
The group presented two new reports updating fast-moving developments in Antarctica, the autonomous Danish territory of Greenland, and the rest of the Arctic.
“The time for collective and immediate action on climate change is now,” said Denmark’s foreign minister, Per Stig Moeller.
But delegates from 192 nations were bogged down in disputes over key issues. This further dimmed hopes for immediate action to cut more deeply into global emissions of greenhouse gases.
Gore and Danish ice scientist Dorthe Dahl Jensen clicked through two slide shows for a standing-room-only crowd of hundreds in a side event at the Bella Center conference site.
One report, on the Greenland ice sheet, was issued by the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Program, an expert group formed by eight Arctic governments, including the United States. The other, commissioned by Gore and Norway’s government, was compiled by the Norwegian Polar Institute on the status of ice melt worldwide.
Average global temperatures have increased 0.74 °C (1.3 °F) in the past century, but the mercury has risen at least twice as quickly in the Arctic. Scientists say the makeup of the frozen north polar sea has shifted significantly in recent years as much of the thick multiyear ice has given way to thin seasonal ice.
In the summer of 2007, the Arctic ice cap dwindled to a record-low minimum extent of 4.3 million km² (1.7 million square miles) in September. The melting in 2008 and 2009 was not as extensive, but still ranked as the second- and third-greatest decreases on record.
Last April, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicted that Arctic summers could be almost ice-free within 30 years, not at the 21st century’s end as earlier predicted.
Gore cited new scientific work at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School, whose Arctic ice research is important for planning polar voyages by Navy submarines. The computer modeling there stresses the “volumetric,” looking not just at the surface extent of ice but its thickness as well.
“Some of the models suggest that there is a 75% chance that the entire north polar ice cap during some of the summer months will be completely ice-free within the next five to seven years,” Gore said. His office later said he meant nearly ice-free, because ice would be expected to survive in island channels and other locations.
Asked for comment, one U.S. government scientist questioned what he called this “aggressive” projection.
“It’s possible but not likely,” said Mark Serreze of the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado. “We’re sticking with 2030.”
On the other hand, a leading NASA ice scientist, Jay Zwally, said last year that the Arctic could be essentially ice-free within “five to less than 10 years.”
Meanwhile, what’s happening to Greenland’s titanic ice sheet “has really surprised us,” said Jensen of the University of Copenhagen.
She cited one huge glacier in west Greenland, at Jakobshavn, that in recent years has doubled its rate of dumping ice into the sea. Between melted land ice and heat expansion of ocean waters, the sea-level rise has increased from 1.8 millimeters a year to 3.4 millimeters (0.07 inch a year to 0.13 inch) in the past 10 years.
Jensen said the biggest ice sheets — Greenland and West Antarctica — were already contributing 1 millimeter (0.04 inch) a year to those rising sea levels. She said this could double within the next decade.
“With global warming, we have woken giants,” she said.
Antarctic Peninsula has been experiencing warming trends for over 40 years with an increase of 2-3 C, thus correlating with lower sea ice conditions in the Amundsen Sea and Bellinghausen Sea. Warming temperatures around the Antarctic Peninsula is changing the dynamics of the ecosystem. The rise in atmospheric temperature is causing increasing in melting of freshwater glaciers and ice shelves. Fresh water emerging into the sea counteracts the salinity within a regional area. Changes identified are;
• Decrease in sea water salinity up to 60 miles offshore
• Lower sea ice
• Decreased krill population
• Increased salp (open ocean tunicate that is reminiscent of a jelly-fish) population
• Increase in cryptophytes (single cell phytoplankton algae)
• Decrease in diatom phytoplankton
• Increase in carbon sequestering in deep ocean sinks
• Decrease in carbon availability in the food chain
The Antarctic Krill (Euphausia superba), a small shrimp like crustacean is the most important zooplankton species associated with the sea ice and plays a crucial role in the Antarctic food web. On a regional basis the amount of krill appear to be declining in the southern ocean. There are definitely lower trends in krill population during lower sea ice years around Antarctica. Part of the rational for the population decline is that ice algae rely on the sea ice for protection and growth. The krill need the sea ice in order to feed on the algae and phytoplankton.
Krill occur in groups or large swarms. They are less than 3 inches in size and feed primarily on phytoplankton and sea ice algae. Krill filter diatom phytoplankton out of the water column and scrape algae from the sea ice. Apart from frequenting the sea ice to feed, krill in particular juveniles, seek protection from predators in the many nooks and crannies formed by the deformed sea ice floes. Krill is the staple food of many fish, birds and mammals in the Southern Ocean. The biomass of Antarctic krill is considered to be larger than that of the earth’s human population.
Sea- ice algae utilizes atmospheric carbon dioxide for its energy source, the same as plants do on land. Krill diet of the sea-ice algae and phytoplankton is essential for converting the carbon for use in higher animals such as fish, birds, and whales. This carbon conversion is a very critical role in predatory nutrition. Additionally krill do eliminate some of the silica from the diatom shells and carbon in sticky balls that sinks nearly two miles into the deep ocean. These cold, deep waters are able to contain carbon dioxide and prevent the gas from rising to the surface, thus immobilizing carbon that is not passed into the food chain.
In recent years there have been increases in algae phytoplankton called cryptophytes. Mark Moline, California Polytechnic State University, states that the cryptophyte population correlates with warmer temperatures and lower salinity waters that are produced by the melting of the freshwater glacier. Cryptophytes measure around 2 mm, while other plankton in the Antarctic waters are much larger and measure 15 to 270 mm. Along with the increase in cryptophyte population an increase in salp, a pelagic tunicate, population has also occurred. There are differences between salps and krill. Salps feeding efficiency is capable of grazing on smaller food sources less than 4mm, whereas, the Antarctic Krill efficiency declines on any food less than 20 mm. The salps compete with krill for the phytoplankton and thus decrease the krill population. Additionally the salps feed on krill larvae, which also cause a decline in krill numbers.
The warming trend in the Antarctic Peninsula is showing a pattern of increasing cryptophytes over other phytoplankton and the increase in the salp. This influence is due to the low sea ice and the lowering of the salinity in the seawater. Salps and cryptophytes do better in the lower salinity, while the krill and other plankton are unable to tolerate the increased freshwater regime from the glacier ice melts. This selectivity gives preference to the salps as the dominant species while decreasing krill abundance. During lower sea ice seasons the density of krill declines while the salp population increases.
Carbon sequestering into the deep ocean from the algae and phytoplankton occur by both the salp and krill. Both species eliminate the atmospheric carbon received from the primary producing algae by producing fecal pellets by the salps and sticky balls by the krill, thereby, reducing the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The salps though sequester more carbon into the cold deep ocean than the krill. However, the krill provides the most efficient pathway for carbon transfer up into the food chain. The cryptophyte dominated waters are less efficient in the food chain due to increased feeding by salps and the difficulty of the krill to utilize the cryptophytes as a food source. Migration patterns by penguins are changing, in part due to the changing krill population. Krill is a mainstay diet for penguins, and if the krill population changes, many other ecological changes occur with it.
