NON-CONVENTIONAL ENERGY SOURCES

NON-CONVENTIONAL ENERGY SOURCES

ABSTRACT

Energy was, is & will remain the basic foundation which determines the stability of economic development of any nation. In a world, which is threatened with the non-availability of fuel, oil supplies & menace of nuclear war, one is bound to look into the future energy prospects with considerable skepticism. The tides are caused by the gravitational forces of moon & sun on the ocean water & are affected by the spinning of earth around its axis & the relative positions of earth, moon & sun. Tides are periodically renewed & hence tidal energy is renewable energy. This paper mainly emphasizes on capsizing the most of alternate power generation using Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) & Tidal Energy.

OCEAN THERMAL ENEGRY CONVERSION (OTEC):

Ocean covers 71% of earth’s surface. On an average day, 60 million sq. meter of tropical sea absorbs an amount of solar radiation equivalent in heat content to about 245 billion barrels of oil. India has 15 million sq. meter of tropical water zone. OTEC available for India is 180,000 MW. OTEC is more convenient than wave & tidal energy. The capacity in single unit is up to 400 MW.

WORKING PRINCIPLE OF OTEC:

The surface of the ocean waters are at a temperature of 28-30ºC. This temperature decreases with depth and at a depth of about 1000m we get a temperature of 6-8ºC. This is a consequence of the Lambert's law of radiation according to which the intensity of radiation exponentially decreases with depth and so the surface receives more solar radiation (also called insolation) compared to the waters below. Moreover, warm water is less dense and hence stays at the top. Hence, the temperature distribution available in the ocean is stable and the temperature difference remains constant more or less throughout the year.