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Floating power plants may be wave of future
REDONDO BEACH, Calif.
(UPI) — Huge floating power
plants, driven by the tempera
ture difference between near
freezing currents deep in the
ocean and warm waters at the
surface, may one day provide
pollution-free energy for cities
and factories on land.
The idea of thus harnessing
the ocean is an old one, but it
has never been successfully
demonstrated on a large scale.
Today, however, researchers
are working under two separate
contracts from the National
Science Foundation to see
whether theory can be turned
into practice to help relieve the
energy shortage.
“We foresee the possibility of
100 to 500 megawatt power
generating plants operating
from floating ocean platforms,”
said Bob Douglass of TRW Inc.,
one of the firms to which the
NSF turned. “A pilot plant to
prove the concept could be
operating in the early 1980 s.”
A plant capable of generating
100 megawatts of electricity
might satisfy the needs of
residential customers in a city
with a population of 300,000 or
400,000 persons.
Lloyd Trimble of Lockheed
Missile and Space Co., the firm
conducting the other NSF
study, said a string of these
power plants might be an
chored in the Gulf Stream a
few miles off the U.S. East
Coast to serve cities from
Miami northward.
One major question still to be
answered, however, is the
effect that many of these plants
operating in the same area
might produce as they cooled
the ocean surface and raised
temperatures in the deeps. The
temperature change would be
Youngsters
need check
on vision
By PATRICIA MC CORMACK
UPI Family Editor
NEW YORK (UPI) - If
there’s a pre-school boy or girl
at your house, you should know
about amblyopia.
This is the doctor’s word for
lazy eye. Children need to be
checked for that around the age
of three.
There are other visual defects
that can be spotted at the
examination for amblyopia.
There may be a tendency to
farsightedness, crossed eyes,
astigmatism, nearsightedness.
Lazy eye is just that. It is one
eye that lets the other eye do
all the work. As a result, early
in the game, the eye becomes
tezy and goes through life
letting the other eye do all the
seeing.
Correction of this tendency at
the preschool stage often is
possible. The lazy eye is made
to work when the doctor
prescribes a patch over the
good eye. That way the lazy
eye learns to function as it
should.
The American Optometric
Association says parents can
help change a child’s fear about
a first vision examination. This
can be done with the aid of
some items found in most
homes.
Let your child experiment
with binoculars. This is prac
tice for peering into the vision
diagnostic equipment in the
optometrist’s office.
Before going for the examina
tion, parents should not men
tion the possibility of their child
needing glasses. For psycholog
ical reasons parents should
avoid the mention of blindness.
Other suggestions to help
prepare a child for his first
vision examination:
—Plan for an appointment
early in the day—before the
child is tired. Allow ample time
for- the examination. The
youngster will need time to
adjust to the new situation and
to relax.
—Talk naturally about the
visit to the eye doctor’s as you
would about any other routine
experience.
—Compare the “E” chart to
a puzzle and instruments to a
tiny flashlight and a kaleido
scope.
—Go into the examining room
with the child but let the doctor
lead the conversation there.
small, but the environmental
effects have not been deter
mined.
TRW’s Energy Group at
Redondo Beach was granted a
$391,427 contract by the NSF in
August to conduct a nine-month
study. At the same time the
NSF gave Lockheed’s Ocean
Systems Division at Sunnyvale,
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Calif., a $328,188 contract for a
similar feasibility study.
A device to extract power
from ocean thermal differences
would probably look like a long
pipe projecting from the bottom
of a floating platform that
might be 300 feet in diameter.
It would take in warm water
at the upper end to supply a
boiler and cold water at the
lower end to cool a condenser.
A secondary fluid, such as
amonia or freon, would circu
late between the boiler and
condenser.
“The warmer water... would
vaporize a refrigerant gas such
as freon to drive a turbine
generator,” Douglass said.
“Colder water would... cool the
gas again and start the cycle
over.”
This type of plant might have
to operate far out at sea, where
electric power lines to the shore
would be impractical. For that
reason,the plant’s electricity
might be used to break down
seawater into hydrogen, a fuel
Page 19
— Griffin Daily News Wednesday, September 18,1974
which could be transported to
land by pipeline or tanker.
In a sense, these floating
power plants would be tapping
solar energy.
Between the Tropics of
Cancer and Capricorn, the
ocean’s surface stays an almost
constant 77 degrees Fahrenheit
because of the balance between
daytime solar heating and the
cooling effect of evaporation.
At the same time, cold water
from melting snow and ice far
from the equator slides to the
depths and slowly moves
toward the equator. This results
in temperatures of about 40
degrees Fahrenheit in depths as
shallow as 1,000 feet between
the two tropics.
An early plant working on
this principle was used to
produce 22 kilowatts of elec
tricity in Cuba in 1929. Two
experimental plants with a 3.5
megawatt output were installed
off the Ivory Coast in 1956, but
were soon abandoned because
of mechanical failures.