Mist Lift OTEC designs

Out of Gas? Refuel with Mist lift Ocean Thermal Energy

Stuart Ridgway, who worked on Mist lift OTEC in the early '80s has published a new paper on the feasibility of Mist lift OTEC in the light of the increasing costs of keeping fossil fuels as the primary energy source for the world. 19 April 2005 by Stuart Ridgway.

Projected capital costs of a Mist Lift OTEC power plant (PDF 1 Mb)

A conceptual design of 4 MW Mist Lift OTEC plant. This design is a modified extrapolation of mist transport data aquired in experiments during 1980-1981. 1984 by Stuart L. Ridgway (7 pages).

Fresh water from the mist lift cycle (PDF 610 kb)

The Mist Lift OTEC cycle is a low cost method of producing electricity from the temperature difference between the surface and the depths of the tropical oceans. It is an open cycle, i. e. uses water vapor as the working fluid. It differs from the Claude cycle in that the work is extracted'by the vapor lifting a mist of water droplets rather than driving a turbine. September 1985 by Stuart L. Ridgeway (10 pages).

Vapor/droplet coupling and the Mist Flow (OTEC) cycle

The present experiments have demonstrated that water droplets (200 micro m dia) can be lifted to substantial heights (50 m) by their own vapor produced in flashing over temperature differences typical of the tropical seas. The coupling between the vapor and droplets is found to be excellent. The efficiency for momentum coupling is over 90 percent, and that for energy coupling is shown to vary inversely with the slip ratio. July 1982 by C.K.B. Lee and S.L. Ridgway (6 pages).

Experimental demonstration of the feasibility of the mist flow ocean thermal energy process (PDF 572 kb)

The Mist Flow Ocean Thermal Energy Process is a practical method for exploiting the ocean temperature difference without using heat exchangers or large vapor turbines. The validity of the concept has been demonstrated in a set of experiments conducted in a 4 meter tall transparent test column of 23 x 36 inch cross section. December 1981 by S.L. Ridgway, R.P. Hammond, C.K.B. Lee (7 pages).