Energy Islands Potential Future of Renewable Energy? by Michael L Leigh
The idea of an energy island is to create an offshore platform that floats around generating electricity through various technologies. There has already been a lot of research and theoretical work that shows this is entirely possible but there are some drawbacks. First let's talk more about the types of energy that is harnessed.
The two most common energy types are wind and ocean heat exchange. The first you're probably familiar with, and it can be harnessed using wind power turbines on the island surface. The second is pumping water from deep below the surface up to the warmer surface waters and using a heat exchange to generate electricity from this imbalance. There was an extensive research operation done on this idea and it was shown to work in actual practice with around a 5 Celsius difference between water temperatures.
So, it is obvious that energy can be collected using energy islands but the problems are centered around maintenance and collection. Energy produced at sea still has to make it back somewhere useful and this consumes energy in the process. Questions have been raised about the energy efficiency from start to finish. Oceans are also extremely harsh environments especially for electronics. Maintenance will undoubtedly be required to keep these islands operational. This will be an additional expense with the added cost of having to move technicians around on the ocean.
The advantages of a renewable energy collected at sea are currently outweighed by issues mainly relating to cost. With a different energy landscape, such as the peak of the oil crisis, then energy islands might be a viable solution.
For more information visit my page which has energy islands explained or visit my site renewable energy future for more general topics on renewable energy. Hope this was an enjoyable read for you.
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