Earth Equity News

Generating Energy From the Deep. By Kate Galbraith, NYTimes, April 30, 2009. "Lockheed Martin is best known for building... military equipment. But since late 2006 the company has taken on a different kind of enterprise:... ocean thermal energy conversion, which uses the difference in temperature between the ocean's warm surface and its chilly depths to generate electricity... The technology is expensive and can work in only a limited number of places, like the tropics, where there is a large difference in temperature between the ocean's layers... [and it] would not leave its surroundings unscathed. A huge amount of cold water would have to be pumped up from the depths. If that water, which is rich in nutrients, is discharged into a different part of the ocean, it could confuse fish and alter the balance of the ecosystem... Last year, Gov. Linda Lingle of Hawaii announced a partnership between Lockheed and the Industrial Technology Research Institute in Taiwan to build a test plant in Hawaii. Lockheed says it hopes to obtain financing for the project from the Defense and Energy Departments, as well as from the private sector."