How do we power a seastead?
Deep-sea colonies will need lots of power, & the more varied the sources of energy, the better. But some types aren't useful or even possible on such a colony, so I thought it'd be a good time to look at each of them and give them each a grade.
~~~
1. OTEC (Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion) ~ A ~ Creating electricity from the difference between deep-sea frozen water and surface water is as good as it gets. The benefits here are amazing, such as it being totally free and infinite in supply, but the problem is that there is still a lot of investment to be made in the technology before it is scaled up enough to become useful.
OTEC would be ideal for bitcoin miners at sea too, doing double-duty generating energy while cooling chips. Such a plant does require a large operation, so any OTEC plant would be on the municipal scale, providing lots of energy to the whole seastead 24/7.
~~~
2. Solar (Photovoltaic panels) ~ B ~ Sunlight is super-plentiful at any seastead's latitude, and PV panels are excellent for small-scale power generation on each home. Of course they can't provide much power at night, so its product should be thought of supplemental, decentralized energy. For some homes with a battery bank, they may indeed produce all the juice the owner needs... Assuming the up-front investment is affordable.
While it is notoriously hard to recycle a PV panel, they can eventually be manufactured at sea! They are made of a mix of both common & rare minerals. Making the glass at sea is a breeze, and the ocean floor is full of sand to do that with. The more rare elements are all hopefully found in Manganese Nodules, so large seasteads that mine the seafloor may very well be able to create PV panels eventually on the float!
~~~
3. Petro (oil refining) ~ B- ~ Despite the extreme advancements in oil refining and ginny technology, & the ease of purchase from pretty much any country worldwide, environmentalists will have a hissy fit & declare any seastead using oil a major source of pollution at sea. What's ironic is that most boats at sea still do use petro... And oil can be plentifully mined in many regions as well. This option would likely come with a hefty political price tag though.
~~~
4. Wind (Windmill generators) ~ C ~ Wind is less plentiful and less predictable than sunlight where seasteads reside, but windmills on each household could be useful as backup power. Larger windfarms probably won't be profitable down in the tropics so this could never be a full solution.
~~~
5. Wave motion bouy generators ~ D ~ Similarly, waves are just too small where we plan to park our houses. The better the location for a seastead, the smaller the waves, therefore the less useful this power generation source becomes. - But if anyone loves huge waves and wants to live in the north Atlantic, this is your go-to power source!
~~~
6. Nuclear Fission plant ~ F ~ Nukes are small enough now, but very expensive & full of problems for seasteaders... Not only does it give nations a reason to attack us, (because our power plant can be converted into a dirty bomb) but who is going to sell us the Uranium pellets? They aren't mined at sea, last I checked.
~~~
7. Hydro Dam power ~ F ~ You'd think with all that water we could move a turbine or two, but no one's figured out how to dam up the ocean yet. ;)
~~~
8. Geothermal plant ~ F ~ There are undersea volcanoes that we could tap into like a land geothermal plant, but the heat is so far away from us that it would take a very complex geo plant at the seafloor and then the seastead would have to be tethered to that with wires in order to bring the power up to us. This is simply not going to be viable.
~~~
9. Nuclear Fusion plant ~ F- ~ Oh come on now, this isn't even working well at CERN yet, I doubt we'll get it on a seastead in the next 150 years...
~~~
Seems obvious to me we'll be using a blend of OTEC & solar panels. Did I miss anything?
LukeParker / luke
npub12u…f8pyh
2023-09-05 04:42:00
in reply to naddr1qq…s7cv
Author Public Key
npub12u423pq5c6c5gvyzlekk5u9s5ksnyd27yemuvu3l9gpqpcnx545s6f8pyhPublished at
2023-09-05 04:42:00Event JSON
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"content": "How do we power a seastead?\n\nDeep-sea colonies will need lots of power, \u0026 the more varied the sources of energy, the better. But some types aren't useful or even possible on such a colony, so I thought it'd be a good time to look at each of them and give them each a grade.\n\n~~~\n\n1. OTEC (Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion) ~ A ~ Creating electricity from the difference between deep-sea frozen water and surface water is as good as it gets. The benefits here are amazing, such as it being totally free and infinite in supply, but the problem is that there is still a lot of investment to be made in the technology before it is scaled up enough to become useful. \n\nOTEC would be ideal for bitcoin miners at sea too, doing double-duty generating energy while cooling chips. Such a plant does require a large operation, so any OTEC plant would be on the municipal scale, providing lots of energy to the whole seastead 24/7.\n\n~~~\n\n2. Solar (Photovoltaic panels) ~ B ~ Sunlight is super-plentiful at any seastead's latitude, and PV panels are excellent for small-scale power generation on each home. Of course they can't provide much power at night, so its product should be thought of supplemental, decentralized energy. For some homes with a battery bank, they may indeed produce all the juice the owner needs... Assuming the up-front investment is affordable.\n\nWhile it is notoriously hard to recycle a PV panel, they can eventually be manufactured at sea! They are made of a mix of both common \u0026 rare minerals. Making the glass at sea is a breeze, and the ocean floor is full of sand to do that with. The more rare elements are all hopefully found in Manganese Nodules, so large seasteads that mine the seafloor may very well be able to create PV panels eventually on the float! \n\n~~~\n\n3. Petro (oil refining) ~ B- ~ Despite the extreme advancements in oil refining and ginny technology, \u0026 the ease of purchase from pretty much any country worldwide, environmentalists will have a hissy fit \u0026 declare any seastead using oil a major source of pollution at sea. What's ironic is that most boats at sea still do use petro... And oil can be plentifully mined in many regions as well. This option would likely come with a hefty political price tag though. \n\n~~~\n\n4. Wind (Windmill generators) ~ C ~ Wind is less plentiful and less predictable than sunlight where seasteads reside, but windmills on each household could be useful as backup power. Larger windfarms probably won't be profitable down in the tropics so this could never be a full solution.\n\n~~~\n\n5. Wave motion bouy generators ~ D ~ Similarly, waves are just too small where we plan to park our houses. The better the location for a seastead, the smaller the waves, therefore the less useful this power generation source becomes. - But if anyone loves huge waves and wants to live in the north Atlantic, this is your go-to power source! \n\n~~~\n\n6. Nuclear Fission plant ~ F ~ Nukes are small enough now, but very expensive \u0026 full of problems for seasteaders... Not only does it give nations a reason to attack us, (because our power plant can be converted into a dirty bomb) but who is going to sell us the Uranium pellets? They aren't mined at sea, last I checked.\n\n~~~\n\n7. Hydro Dam power ~ F ~ You'd think with all that water we could move a turbine or two, but no one's figured out how to dam up the ocean yet. ;) \n\n~~~\n\n8. Geothermal plant ~ F ~ There are undersea volcanoes that we could tap into like a land geothermal plant, but the heat is so far away from us that it would take a very complex geo plant at the seafloor and then the seastead would have to be tethered to that with wires in order to bring the power up to us. This is simply not going to be viable.\n\n~~~\n\n9. Nuclear Fusion plant ~ F- ~ Oh come on now, this isn't even working well at CERN yet, I doubt we'll get it on a seastead in the next 150 years...\n\n~~~\n\nSeems obvious to me we'll be using a blend of OTEC \u0026 solar panels. Did I miss anything?",
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