PROGRESS AND VISION FOR THE BLUE REVOLUTION

Blue Revolution Hawaii last year organized a session at Aquaculture America 2018 to encourage early thinking of the concept.  Board member Benny Ron has been working with NOAA and international partners in advancing the field.

Usually, on all campuses world-wide, there is a solid core of ocean scientists dedicated to measuring, modeling and repeating the process with better equipment over time.  Now and then there might be a couple of ocean engineers, half helping those scientists with the technology of measurement, and the other half attempting to create a career to apply ocean science knowledge, linking with industry to do something useful for the economy and world.  There is almost no federal funding in this esoteric area.

In essence, the Blue Revolution is that esoteric field.  The Blue Revolution has been touted for three decades as something ideal for the future of our society, for, while producing sustainable products and clean energy, shows promise for reducing the incidence of hurricanes and remediating global warming.  As the ocean gets most of the warming, the concept shows promise for reversing climate change.

While we have been drawing together the various elements to build the first Blue Revolution Platform, the greater vision has to do with what could be the ultimate outcome.  The magnitude of this effort could well rival the to monumental accomplishments in modern history:  The Manhattan Project and Project Apollo.

So let us first quickly review those two previous great challenges:  beating Hitler in his quest for the Atomic Bomb, and overcoming the Soviet Union in space with Project Apollo to the Moon.  Both efforts cost $25 billion, but only $2 billion was spent to build the bombs, which has a worth of $25 billion today.  On the other hand, Apollo actually cost $25 billion in the early to mid 70's, or $150 billion in 2019 dollars.

If Hitler succeeded before the Allies, who knows what the world would be today.  The success of the Apollo Project has been said to be primary reason why the USA prevailed over the Soviet Union around 1990, bringing an end to the Cold War and the fear of a nuclear winter.  Sure, we still have a mettlesome North Korea, a pugnaciously commercial China and a noisy Russia, but the Doomsday Clock remains precariously set at 2 minutes to Midnight mostly because of global climate change.

So that is the next greatest challenge for Humanity and Planet Earth?  Overcoming Hitler led to nuclear power, but fission using Uranium and Plutonium, with the potential for more bombs, led to Chernobyl and Fukushima, with a continuing rocky future.  The Apollo Project showed that there was no really attractive commercial case for the Moon.  How now, can we go one better by marshaling international cooperation towards a reduction of carbon dioxide combustion, while actually enhancing long-term human productivity?

This was the breakthrough clue I needed to make the Blue Revolution the next great solution.  The key is that the Blue Revolution can be profitable.  Just absorbing carbon dioxide makes no sense because it is too expensive.  Clean coal technology similarly is a money-loser.  There is no way to make a profit from reducing carbon burning, except using something else.  And one of these could well be ocean thermal energy conversion, or OTEC.

That is the advantage of the Blue Revolution, for the whole process will be powered by OTEC, a technology that begins to become competitive only at 1000 MW sizes and larger.  The total system, thus, uses the heat of the ocean, which is replenished by the sun, with the cold portion coming from Arctic and Antarctic regions.  In addition to electricity and freshwater, there will be a cornucopia of desirable products such as next generation fisheries, marine biomass plantations, hydrogen, biomethanol, comfortable new habitation options, exciting entertainment enterprises and much more.  These Blue Revolution platforms will in time become floating cities.  Most of them will be positioned along the equator, where the temperature difference is the greatest, and where hurricanes don't cross.  Of course, many platforms will be in hurricane formation zones, and the drop of ocean surface temperatures by a degree or two can eliminate the formation of these ocean storms.  And much of the ocean can be utilized for these purposes:

Let us say, then, that ocean cities and Disneys-at-Sea someday become significant, how exactly will global warming be remediated?  For now, take my word that there is promise. Not conventional snake oil, I have evidence in the next paragraph

The French invented OTEC (to the right, Jacques-Arsene d'Arsonval).  Here are two French sources I co-authored, providing intriguing insights:

• Energy from the Sea:  The Potential and Realities of Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion
• Artificial Upwelling for Environmental Enhancement

For decades, our team has hinted that a sum of $1.5 billion was necessary to kick-start the Blue Revolution.  This will get you a floating platform, possibly powered by a 10MW OTEC facility, supporting an array of experiments to develop sustainable co-products.  At least, at this cost, perhaps an enterprising billionaire seeking a legacy could be found to lead the effort.

The reality is that something closer to $150 billion will be required to support a full industrial park with a 1000 MW OTEC plant.  If the first system makes money, more will be built.  After all, the Navy has proposed a Columbia-class nuclear submarine force estimated to have a lifecycle cost of $347 billion.  What a $150 billion tab does is eliminate a simple billionaire, for even Jeff Bezos only has $131 billion.  But what an opportunity to save the Planet while making money.

No question that this military expense will improve our national fighting-ship.  But why, for we always annually spend more for war than the next seven nations put together.  Well, Bernie Sanders has said that the correct answer is 12 countries, but certainly somewhere in between those numbers.  Perhaps Bernie has special info, for the estimated U.S. military spending from 1 October 2019 to 20 September 2020 shows our country spending more on defense than the next NINE countries, combined.

For the record, here are some 2018 graphics showing the last official comparison:

$150 billion Blue Revolution platform (to the left, actually, is something from the Seasteading Institute) will be step one to solve our looming global warming problem.  Why?  Each will turn a healthy profit, while remediating climate change.  The more money they make, the more they will be built.  After all, remember how expensive both the Manhattan and Apollo Projects were?  Well:

So, you ask, where can anyone find $150 billion to build the first Blue Revolution Challenger?  Blue Revolution Hawaii has taken on that mission, with the first step to be an experimental platform.

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