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Ocean Electricity
With 70% of the earths surface covered in water there is a vast potential of utilising this to create electricity. There are two main types of ocean energy available in today’s modern world, thermal and mechanical. Thermal uses the warm surface water of the ocean to vaporise a working fluid. This is then fed through a turbine and used to create electricity. Mechanical energy uses the power of waves to convert tidal energy to electricity by feeding the water through a barrage. In many respects a barrage is a dam in the sea as it will house a series of turbines which are driven by the force of the waves passing through a channel.
Although there is an abundance of ocean energy available to humans it is difficult to harness this power. In order to build a barrage the location must be correct and have good tides, otherwise the energy creation will be sporadic. Although some power creation will occur on sites with less consistent tides it is possible that the energy required to run the plant may be more than the quantity it is creating.