Pizzola-Rawlings Aff

OTEC

Inherency
Regulatory Uncertainty prevents OTEC projects
Carolyn Elefant, 2002 (Principal Attorney, LOCE, Energypulse.net Proposed Strategies for Addressing Regulatory Uncertainty in Ocean Energy Development in the United States)

THE REGULATORY BARRIERS TO OCEAN ENERGY DEVELOPERS
A. Overview of Regulatory Uncertainty
The foregoing events suggest that presently, there is sufficient confidence in the functionality of ocean energy technology to warrant further investigation of its potential for commercialization. However, even if these pilot projects and investigative programs resolve all of the feasibility and economic concerns about ocean energy, one substantial barrier to commercialization of ocean energy would still remain: regulatory uncertainty. Regulatory uncertainty refers to those risks inherent in the obtaining any necessary licenses or permits to construct and operate the project from the appropriate regulatory authority. Risks exist in the regulatory process because both federal and state licensing or permitting authorities typically have the option of rejecting a permit application or alternatively, issuing a permit but including limits on operation or required enhancement measures to mitigate environmental impacts which can increase the overall cost of the project. In deciding whether to fund an energy project, investors must factor in the risks associated with licensing a project and will decline investment where there is considerable uncertainty that a project can or will be licensed on favorable terms. Indeed, regulatory uncertainty explains why nuclear power plants have long been regarded as an unappealing investment: given strong public opposition and stringent licensing requirements, the chances of a nuclear project obtaining a license which does not include onerous operating and mitigating conditions are slim.

Plan: The United States Federal Government should reduce restrictions on Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion in the United States imposed by entities other than the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Advantages

Climate Change
Climate change is real and anthropogenic
Lewandowsky and Ashley 2011 (Stephan Lewandowsky, Professor of Cognitive Studies at the University of Western Australia, and Michael Ashley, Professor of Astrophysics at the University of New South Wales, June 24, 2011, “The false, the confused and the mendacious: how the media gets it wrong on climate change,” http://goo.gl/u3nOC)
But despite these complexities, some aspects of climate science are thoroughly settled. We know that atmospheric CO2 is increasing due to humans. We know that this CO2, while being just a small fraction of the atmosphere, has an important influence on temperature. We can calculate the effect, and predict what is going to happen to the earth’s climate during our lifetimes, all based on fundamental physics that is as certain as gravity. The consensus opinion of the world’s climate scientists is that climate change is occurring due to human CO₂ emissions. The changes are rapid and significant, and the implications for our civilisation may be dire. The chance of these statements being wrong is vanishingly small. Scepticism and denialism Some people will be understandably sceptical about that last statement. But when they read up on the science, and have their questions answered by climate scientists, they come around. These people are true sceptics, and a degree of scepticism is healthy. Other people will disagree with the scientific consensus on climate change, and will challenge the science on internet blogs and opinion pieces in the media, but no matter how many times they are shown to be wrong, they will never change their opinions. These people are deniers. The recent articles in The Conversation have put the deniers under the microscope. Some readers have asked us in the comments to address the scientific questions that the deniers bring up. This has been done. Not once. Not twice. Not ten times. Probably more like 100 or a 1000 times. Denier arguments have been dealt with by scientists, again and again and again. But like zombies, the deniers keep coming back with the same long-falsified and nonsensical arguments. The deniers have seemingly endless enthusiasm to post on blogs, write letters to editors, write opinion pieces for newspapers, and even publish books. What they rarely do is write coherent scientific papers on their theories and submit them to scientific journals. The few published papers that have been sceptical about climate change have not withstood the test of time. The phony debate on climate change So if the evidence is this strong, why is there resistance to action on climate change in Australia? At least two reasons can be cited. First, as The Conversation has revealed, there are a handful of individuals and organizations who, by avoiding peer review, have engineered a phony public debate about the science, when in fact that debate is absent from the one arena where our scientific knowledge is formed. These individuals and organisations have so far largely escaped accountability. But their free ride has come to an end, as the next few weeks on The Conversation will continue to show. The second reason, alas, involves systemic failures by the media. Systemic media failures arise from several presumptions about the way science works, which range from being utterly false to dangerously ill-informed to overtly malicious and mendacious. The false Let’s begin with what is merely false. A tacit presumption of many in the media and the public is that climate science is a brittle house of cards that can be brought down by a single new finding or the discovery of a single error. Nothing could be further from the truth. Climate science is a cumulative enterprise built upon hundreds of years of research. The heat-trapping properties of CO₂ were discovered in the middle of the 19th century, pre-dating even Sherlock Holmes and Queen Victoria.

Unchecked Climate Changes results in extinction
Ahmed 2010 (Nafeez Ahmed, Executive Director of the Institute for Policy Research and Development, professor of International Relations and globalization at Brunel University and the University of Sussex, Spring/Summer 2010, “Globalizing Insecurity: The Convergence of Interdependent Ecological, Energy, and Economic Crises,” Spotlight on Security, Volume 5, Issue 2, online)
Perhaps the most notorious indicator is anthropogenic global warming. The landmark 2007 Fourth Assessment Report of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) – which warned that at then-current rates of increase of fossil fuel emissions, the earth’s global average temperature would likely rise by 6°C by the end of the 21st century creating a largely uninhabitable planet – was a wake-up call to the international community.[v] Despite the pretensions of ‘climate sceptics,’ the peer-reviewed scientific literature has continued to produce evidence that the IPCC’s original scenarios were wrong – not because they were too alarmist, but on the contrary, because they were far too conservative. According to a paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, current CO2 emissions are worse than all six scenarios contemplated by the IPCC. This implies that the IPCC’s worst-case six-degree scenario severely underestimates the most probable climate trajectory under current rates of emissions.[vi] It is often presumed that a 2°C rise in global average temperatures under an atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gasses at 400 parts per million (ppm) constitutes a safe upper limit – beyond which further global warming could trigger rapid and abrupt climate changes that, in turn, could tip the whole earth climate system into a process of irreversible, runaway warming.[vii] Unfortunately, we are already well past this limit, with the level of greenhouse gasses as of mid-2005 constituting 445 ppm.[viii] Worse still, cutting-edge scientific data suggests that the safe upper limit is in fact far lower. James Hansen, director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, argues that the absolute upper limit for CO2 emissions is 350 ppm: “If the present overshoot of this target CO2 is not brief, there is a possibility of seeding irreversible catastrophic effects.”[ix] A wealth of scientific studies has attempted to explore the role of positive-feedback mechanisms between different climate sub-systems, the operation of which could intensify the warming process. Emissions beyond 350 ppm over decades are likely to lead to the total loss of Arctic sea-ice in the summer triggering magnified absorption of sun radiation, accelerating warming; the melting of Arctic permafrost triggering massive methane injections into the atmosphere, accelerating warming; the loss of half the Amazon rainforest triggering the momentous release of billions of tons of stored carbon, accelerating warming; and increased microbial activity in the earth’s soil leading to further huge releases of stored carbon, accelerating warming; to name just a few. Each of these feedback sub-systems alone is sufficient by itself to lead to irreversible, catastrophic effects that could tip the whole earth climate system over the edge.[x] Recent studies now estimate that the continuation of business-as-usual would lead to global warming of three to four degrees Celsius before 2060 with multiple irreversible, catastrophic impacts; and six, even as high as eight, degrees by the end of the century – a situation endangering the survival of all life on earth.[xi]

OTEC Power and Desalination plants can solve for fossil fuels, nuc power plants, and climate change

R. Magesh, 2010 (R. Magesh is with Coastal Energen Pvt. Ltd, Proceedings of the World Congress on Engineering, OTEC Technology- A World of Clean Energy and Water) 

Scientists all over the world are making predictions about the ill effects of Global warming and its consequences on the mankind. Conventional Fuel Fired Electric Power Stations contribute nearly 21.3% of the Global Green House Gas emission annually. Hence, an alternative for such Power Stations is a must to prevent global warming. One fine alternative that comes to the rescue is the Ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC) Power Plant, the complete Renewable Energy Power Station for obtaining Cleaner and Greener Power. Even though the concept is simple and old, recently it has gained momentum due to worldwide search for clean continuous energy sources to replace the fossil fuels. The design of a 5 Megawatt OTEC Pre-commercial plant is clearly portrayed to brief the OTEC technical feasibility along with economic consideration studies for installing OTEC across the world. OTEC plant can be seen as a combined Power Plant and Desalination plant. Practically, for every Megawatt of power generated by hybrid OTEC plant, nearly 2.28 million litres of desalinated water is obtained every day. Its value is thus increased because many parts of the globe are facing absolute water scarcity. OTEC could produce enough drinking water to ease the crisis of drought-stricken areas. The water can be used for local agriculture and industry, any excess water could be given or sold to neighboring communities.

I. INTRODUCTION
OCEAN thermal energy conversion is a hydro energy conversion system, which uses the temperature difference that exists between deep and shallow waters in tropical seas to run a heat engine. The economic evaluation of OTEC plants indicates that their commercial future lies in floating plants of approximately 100 MW capacity for industrialized nations and smaller plants for small-island-developing-states (SIDS). The operational data is needed to earn the support required from the financial community and developers. Considering a 100 MW (4-module) system, a 1/5-scaled version of a 25 MW module is proposed as an appropriate size. A 5 MW precommercial plant is directly applicable in some SIDS. OTEC works on Rankine cycle, using a low-pressure turbine to generate electric power. There are two general types of OTEC design: closed-cycle plants utilize the evaporation of a working fluid, such as ammonia or propylene, to drive the turbine generator, and open-cycle plants use steam from evaporated sea water to run the turbine. Another commonly known design, hybrid plants, is a combination of the two. In fact, the plants would cool the ocean by the same amount as the energy extracted from them. Apart from power generation, an OTEC plant can also be used to pump up the cold deep sea water for air conditioning and refrigeration, if it is brought back to shore. In addition, the enclosed sea water surrounding the plant can be used for aquaculture. Hydrogen produced by subjecting the steam to electrolysis during the OTEC process can fuel hybrid automobiles, provided hydrogen can be transported economically to sea shore. Another undeveloped opportunity is the potential to mine ocean water for its 57 elements contained in salts and other forms and dissolved in solution. The initial capital cost of OTEC power station would look high, but an OTEC plant would not involve the waste treatment or astronomical decommissioning costs of a nuclear facility. Also, it would offset its expense through the sale of the desalinated water.
OTEC solves climate change
Christopher D. Barry, P.E., 2008 (Christopher D. Barry is a naval architect and co-chair of the Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers ad hoc panel on ocean renewable energy, RenewableEnergyWorld.com, Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion and CO2 Sequestration)
OTEC and Carbon Sequestering
However, deep cold water is laden with nutrients. In the tropics, the warm surface waters are lighter than the cold water and act as a cap to keep the nutrients in the deeps. This is why there is much less life in the tropical ocean than in coastal waters or near the poles. The tropical ocean is only fertile where there is an upwelling of cold water.
One such upwelling is off the coast of Peru, where the Peru (or Humboldt) Current brings up nutrient laden waters. In this area, with lots of solar energy and nutrients, ocean fertility is about 1800 grams of carbon uptake per square meter per year, compared to only 100 grams typically. This creates a rich fishery, but most of the carbon eventually sinks to the deeps in the form of waste products and dead microorganisms.
This process is nothing new; worldwide marine microorganisms currently sequester about forty billion metric tonnes of carbon per year. They are the major long term sink for carbon dioxide.
In a recent issue of Nature, Lovelock and Rapley suggested using wave-powered pumps to bring up water from the deeps to sequester carbon. But OTEC also brings up prodigious amounts of deep water and can do the same thing. In one design, a thousand cubic meters of water per second are required to produce 70 MW of net output power.
We can make estimates of fertility enhancement and sequestration, but a guess is that an OTEC plant designed to optimize nutrification might produce 10,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide sequestration per year per MW. The recent challenge by billionaire Sir Richard Branson is to sequester one billion tonnes of carbon dioxide per year in order to halt global warming, so an aggressive OTEC program, hundreds of several hundred MW plants might meet this.
Famine & Water
Pollution from CO2 makes food shortages and famine inevitable
PhysOrg 2012 (PhysOrg, January 25, 2012, “Food crops damaged by pollution crossing continents,” http://phys.org/news/2012-01-food-crops-pollution-continents.html)
Man-made air pollution from North America causes Europe to lose 1.2 million tonnes of wheat a year, a new study has found. ¶ The research, led by the University of Leeds and co-authored by the University of York, shows for the first time the extent of the Northern Hemisphere's intercontinental crop losses caused by ozone - a chemical partly produced by fossil fuels. The study also suggests that increasing levels of air pollution from one continent may partly offset efforts to cut carbon emissions in another. The findings have important implications for international strategies to tackle global food shortages, as well as global climate and human health strategies. In a paper published in Biogeosciences, researchers show how ozone pollution generated in each of the Northern Hemisphere's major industrialised regions (Europe, North America and South East Asia) damages six important agricultural crops (wheat, maize, soybean, cotton, potato and rice) not only locally, but also by travelling many thousands of kilometres downwind. Of the yield losses to Europe caused by ozone, pollution originating from North America is responsible for a 1.2 million ton annual loss of wheat. This is the biggest intercontinental ozone-related impact on any food crop. The scale of the impact of North American pollution on European wheat has previously been unknown. Dr Steve Arnold, a senior lecturer in atmospheric composition at the University of Leeds's School of Earth and Environment, who led the study, said: "Our findings demonstrate that air pollution plays a significant role in reducing global crop productivity, and show that the negative impacts of air pollution on crops may have to be addressed at an international level rather than through local air quality policies alone." 

Water Scarcity trades off with agriculture
Webber 12Michael E. Webber, assistant professor of mechanical engineering and the associate director of the Center for International Energy and Environmental Policy at the University of Texas, July 23, 2012, "Will Drought Cause the Next Blackout?" http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/24/opinion/will-drought-cause-the-next-blackout.html?_r=1%26pagewanted=print

WE’RE now in the midst of the nation’s most widespread drought in 60 years, stretching across 29 states and threatening farmers, their crops and livestock. But there is another risk as water becomes more scarce. Power plants may be forced to shut down, and oil and gas production may be threatened.

Our energy system depends on water. About half of the nation’s water withdrawals every day are just for cooling power plants. In addition, the oil and gas industries use tens of millions of gallons a day, injecting water into aging oil fields to improve production, and to free natural gas in shale formations through hydraulic fracturing. Those numbers are not large from a national perspective, but they can be significant locally.

All told, we withdraw more water for the energy sector than for agriculture. Unfortunately, this relationship means that water problems become energy problems that are serious enough to warrant high-level attention.

During the 2008 drought in the Southeast, power plants were within days or weeks of shutting down because of limited water supplies. In Texas today, some cities are forbidding the use of municipal water for hydraulic fracturing. The multiyear drought in the West has lowered the snowpack and water levels behind dams, reducing their power output. The United States Energy Information Administration recently issued an alert that the drought was likely to exacerbate challenges to California’s electric power market this summer, with higher risks of reliability problems and scarcity-driven price increases.

And in the Midwest, power plants are competing for water that farmers want for their devastated corn crops.

Unfortunately, trends suggest that this water vulnerability will become more important with time.

Leads to global instability
Bailey and Horwich 12 Rob Bailey, senior research fellow on energy, environment and resources with the Royal Institute of International Affairs, and Jeff Horwich, reporter for Marketplace, July 20, 2012, "U.S. drought could have global impact on food prices," http://www.marketplace.org/topics/world/us-drought-could-have-global-impact-food-prices

Bailey: Well America is an agricultural superpower as well as a traditional global superpower, so it's the biggest producer of maize in the world, it's the biggest producer of soy beans in the world. So as soon as there's a decrease in U.S. agricultural production, that has massive effects for the global economy. These sorts of price impacts could ripple across economies across borders. 

Horwich: And geopolitically, let's just think back a few years when food prices start to rocket in some parts of the world, crazy things can happen. 

Bailey: Absolutely, if you think back to 2008 in Haiti the government actually fell as a result of riots connected to food prices. Fast forward a couple more years to 2011, the Arab Spring actually was sparked by initial protests in a number of countries about the price of bread because the price of wheat had gone up in response to export bans following a really bad harvest in Russia and Ukraine after a heat wave and wild fires there. 

Horwich: Are there any particular flash points that you are looking at this time around?

Bailey: The situation in the Middle East remains much the same, there is still huge political vulnerability to a spike in wheat prices. The other thing that the U.S. is having a big impact on is soy bean prices. But if we see a very sharp increase soy bean prices, you can expect meat prices to rise and this could actually have implications for China, quite seriously.

This results in Nuke War
Dean 95  (Jonathon, advisor on International Security Issues for the Union of Concerned Scientists, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, No. 2, Vol. 51, p. 45, March, lexis)
Experts throughout the world expect growing population pressures and increasing environmental stress to develop over the coming decades into intense, far-reaching social unrest and regional conflict. Economic development is the solution, however slow and uncertain it may be in coming. But the world also needs effective regional conflict-prevention procedures. Left on its own, regional violence can lead to confrontation and even war between the great powers, including the United States, as might occur, for example, in the event of conflict between Ukraine and Russia or between China and its neighbors. In the final analysis, unchecked regional violence and the fear of further violence will lead more states to develop nuclear weapons. In past decades, this process occurred in Israel, South Africa, India, Pakistan, Iraq, and presumably, in North Korea. A world with 20 or 30 nuclear weapon states would not only make a more effective global security system impossible, it would lead the present nuclear weapon states to modernize and increase their weapons - and it would markedly increase the vulnerability of the United States to direct attack.

Solvency

Congressional action key to solve for regulatory patchwork of OTEC
Todd J. Griset, 2010 (Todd J. Griset practices law with Preti Flaherty.’s Energy and Telecommunications Group from the Augusta, Maine office; OCEAN AND COASTAL LAW JOURNAL; HARNESSING THE OCEAN’S POWER: OPPORTUNITIES IN RENEWABLE OCEAN ENERGY RESOURCES)

Congressional action could further streamline the regulatory framework applicable to renewable ocean energy projects. Providing a stable structure for the development of the oceans.’ renewable energy potential would reduce the capital cost required to develop a given project. By providing a clear and consistent legal path for project developers to follow, such legislation would enable the best ocean energy projects to become more cost-competitive. This in turn could provide benefits along the lines of those cited by the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities in approving the Cape Wind power purchase agreement: economic development, a diversified energy policy, greater energy independence, and reduced carbon emissions. The states.’ role in such a regulatory framework should be respected. While renewable power benefits the region, the nation, and the world at large, most of the negative impacts of a given project are felt locally. Establishing a clear regulatory framework including appropriate federal agencies as well as state authority could empower greater development of ocean energy resources without sacrificing values such as navigational rights, fisheries and wildlife, aesthetic considerations, and states.’ rights.

OTEC is feasible, economically viable, and recent advancements solve all problems
McCallister and McLaughlin 2012 [Captain Michael, Senior Engineer with Sound and Sea Technology, Commander Steve, Critical Infrastructure Programs Manager at Sound and Sea Technology, January, "Renewable Energy from the Ocean", U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, Vol. 138, Issue 1, EBSCO]

The well-known OTEC operating principles date to the original concept proposed by Jacques-Arsène d'Arsonval in 1881. OTEC recovers solar energy using a thermodynamic cycle that operates across the temperature difference between warm surface water and cold deep water. In the tropics, surface waters are above 80 degrees Fahrenheit, while at depths of about 1,000 meters water temperatures are just above freezing. This grathent provides a differential that can be used to transfer energy from the warm surface waters and generate electricity.¶ For a system operating between 85 and 35 degrees Fahrenheit, the temperature differential yields a maximum thermodynamic Carnot cycle efficiency of 9.2 percent. Although this is considered low efficiency for a power plant, the "fuel" is free. Hence, the real challenge is to build commercial-scale plants that yield competitively priced electricity.¶ Overcoming Barriers¶ Previous attempts to develop a viable and practical OTEC commercial power system suffered from several challenges. The low temperature delta requires large seawater flows to yield utility scale outputs. Therefore, OTEC plants must be large. Thus, they will also be capital-intensive. As plant capacity increases, the unit outlay becomes more cost-effective due to economy of scale.¶ Survivable cold-water pipes, cost-efficient heat exchangers, and to a lesser extent offshore structures and deep-water moorings represent key technical challenges. However, developments in offshore technologies, new materials, and fabrication and construction processes that were not available when the first serious experimental platforms were developed in the 1970s now provide solutions. When located close to shore, an OTEC plant can transmit power directly to the local grid via undersea cable. Plants farther from shore can also produce power in the form of energy carriers like hydrogen or ammonia, which can be used both as fuel for transportation and to generate power ashore. In agricultural markets, reasonably priced, renewablebased ammonia can displace natural gas in fertilizer production.¶ Combined with marine algae aquaculture programs, OTEC plants can also produce carbon-based synthetic fuels. OTEC facilities can be configured to produce fresh water, and, from a military perspective, system platforms can also serve as supply bases and surveillance sites.¶ Facing Reality¶ Availability of relatively "cheap" fossil fuels limits societal incentives to change and makes energy markets difficult to penetrate. However, the realization of "peak oil" (the theoretical upper limit of global oil production based on known reserves), ongoing instability in Middle East political conditions, adversarial oil-supply partners, and concerns over greenhouse-gas buildup and global warming all contribute to the need for renewable energy solutions.¶ An assessment of OTEC technical readiness by experts at a 2009 National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration workshop indicated that a 10 megawatt (MW) floating OTEC facility is technically feasible today, using current design, manufacturing, and installation technologies.¶ While readiness and scalability for a 100 MW facility were less clear, the conclusion was that experience gained during the construction, deployment, and operation of a smaller pilot plant would be a necessary step in OTEC commercialization. 

OTEC solves resource wars and displaces fossil fuels – recent advances make it feasible – R and D is key
Huang et al. 3 – Joseph C. Huang, Senior Scientist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Hans J. Krock, Professor of Ocean &. Resources Engineering, University of Hawaii and Stephen K. Oney, PhD. and executive vice present of OCEES (July, Revisit Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion System”) Jacome 

The global population is growing and most nations are becoming more industrial. Given the limited natural resources of the earth, it is unavoidable that food, energy and water, the most precious essentials for the survival and comfort of human beings, are the cardinal strategic concerns for the future of the world. Nations are already competing over the limited existing resources for energy, water, and food. Even well developed nations are now facing energy and water shortages. Global warming (largely due to the use of fossil fuels) has resulted in global climate change, especially in the pattern of precipitation, which has increased the competition over these essential natural resources even worse. Developing countries, especially small tropical island nations, spend a major portion of their gross national products on imported fuel and reliable water supplies, and are desperately seeking affordable sustainable technology for these necessities. The world is facing all these challenges, including environment deterioration, water shortage, energy security, and increasing poverty. A world-wide sustainable strategy that addresses issues of the environment, food, energy and water, requires more research and development to make available for benign alternative energy, water and food resources.
The search for natural resources on land has been very diligent and exhaustive. In the energy field, according to International Energy Agency, the rate at which we are discovering new oil will fall below the rate at which we are consuming before 2015 (Dauncey and Massa 2003). The resources for fossil energy, which took million of years through geological and morphological processes to manufacture, are very much limited and will be very precious (Resnick 1990) in the near future. According to British Petroleum World Energy, under the current rate of energy consumption, the ratio of world proved reserves to annual production will be less than 40 years for oil, 62 years for natural gas, and 216 years for coal (EIA – International Energy Outlook 2003). However, the ocean, which covers more than two-thirds of the earth and contains an unlimited bounty of these resources, has been neither well explored nor utilized. The Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) technology, a superior mechanical system which takes advantages of the ubiquitous natural ocean thermal gradients between the warm surface layer and the deep cold water to generate electricity and produce other products, can be very practical for extracting the solar energy stored in the ocean to be employed for coping with current challenges. OTEC technology can be utilized to alleviate both the plight of tropical island people and the over dependence on fossil fuel of the global population. Land-based OTEC installations on tropical islands can be designed as an economically optimized system to produce multiple products. The global energy supply can be greatly supplemented by hydrogen production produced by large OTEC plants floating in the tropical ocean. In the paper, we describe the potential in the oceanic thermal energy, review the current status of OTEC technology, point out recent advancements in engineering designs, and evaluate manufacturing costs and potential market under the current worldwide economic landscaping. Finally, we recommend the need of a field demonstration for commercial OTEC developments and applications.