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== Environmental Enhancement of the Oceans by Increased Solar Radiation from Space ==

Increased solar radiation from Space Light systems can enhance Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC), ocean kelp farming, sea-food production  and rejuvenation of polluted oceans. Space Light Reflectors focused on OTEC sites can enhance ocean thermal energy conversion by increasing the temperature difference between surface waters and the cold ocean depths. In conjunction with nutrient-rich water from ocean upwelling pipes, Space Light can stimulate the growth of phytoplankton on which commercially valuable fish feed. Efficient integration of these space and ocean systems can produce energy and restore life to polluted oceans.

Space Light systems are proposed orbiting reflectors which transmit solar radiation in a controlled manner to selected areas on Earth. The reflection process beams to Earth measured amounts of sunlight energy and 'filters out' UV and shorter radiation, thereby avoiding interference of the beam with physical and chemical processes in the ionosphere and the ozone layer. The light would be beamed by a number of reflectors focused on a given area to be illuminated. Reflector size and number are tailored to their functional requirements. Night illumination would use so-called Lunetta systems and solar radiation would use Soletta systems.

Space Light Reflectors represent a stepping stone in space industrialization with potentially important applications. Space Light systems can be applied to existing ocean technologies with resulting socio-economic benefits.

Space Light Reflectors and Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC)
Space Light Reflectors (Powersolettas) focused on OTEC sites can increase the temperature difference between ocean layers; a difference that ocean thermal energy conversion depends on.

Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion
The current energy crisis is fueling a worldwide search for power. Energy explorers are discovering that a large reserve of potential energy covers more than 70% of the Earth's surface - the oceans. Like a vast storage tank, the oceans absorb nearly 75% of the solar energy that strikes the earth. Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion, or OTEC, is a way to tap this energy by making use of the temperature difference between sun-warmed surface waters and the cold ocean depths.

The concept of OTEC is simple. An OTEC facility pumps warm surface water through an evaporator that uses the heat to convert a working fluid (usually ammonia) to a vapor. The vapor drives a turbine to generate electricity. Cold water from 3,000 feet below is pumped in from a very long Upwelling Pipe and condenses the ammonia vapor back to a liquid.

A cable might carry the electrical output to shore, or the plant could serve as a floating factory, making hydrogen for fuel or extracting minerals and chemicals from the sea. While OTEC energy today would cost more than conventional electricity, this gap could close in the future. A testing facility called OTEC-1 off Hawaii has worked on a 1 MW scale.

Space Light Reflector Application
The OTEC idea works best when the temperature difference between surface and deep water ranges between 35 and 40 degrees Fahrenheit. Power solettas focused on OTEC sites could bring the surface waters to the temperatures necessary for efficient energy conversion. Powersolettas can charge the ocean storage battery while OTEC facilities turn this stored heat into electricity 24 hours a day. The development of this technique could result in a safe and economical method of tapping the sun's energy.

Space Light Reflectors and Ocean Farming
Space Light Reflectors (Biosolettas) focused on kelp farms can stimulate kelp growth for a greater yield of methane gas. Kelp can be converted to methane gas by bacterial decomposition. Large ocean farms of a specific type of kelp could be converted to enough methane to meet many of the annual demands for natural gas. One-acre kelp test farms are now in operation. In the current design, the kelp grows on a floating structure and is fed nutrient¬rich water that is pumped up from the deep ocean through an Upwelling Pipe. The kelp farm structure consists of a spar buoy with 6 steel pipe spokes extending radially outward from the underside of the buoy much like an upside down umbrella. The nutrient supply pipe is suspended below the spar buoy. Since kelp plants do not have roots and must take all their substance from the nutrients contained in cold sea water, the plants are artificially attached at the level of the spokes and supplied nutrient-rich water from 1600 feet at a rate of 8800 gpm.

Even with the limited amount of daylight sun, some varieties of kelp grow as fast as two to three feet a day - faster than any other plant. Increased illumination from Biosolettas could further accelerate this phonomenal growing rate and expand the yield of methane gas. If the current experiments with kelp farms are successful, giant farms could be feasible before the year 2000 when Space Light systems could also be available.

Space Light Reflectors, Ocean Upwelling Pipes and Seafood Production
Space Light reflectors (Biosolettas) focused on the nutrient-rich waters from ocean Upwelling pipes can increase phytoplankton nations and create an artificial food supply for commercially cable fish at a given location.

Phytoplankton (plants) and zooplankton (animals) form the base of the ocean's food web. Planktonic life is important because almost all animal life in the sea is ultimately dependent upon it for existence. Raw materials otherwise useless to zooplankton - or any other animal - are assembled by plants into usable food. This planktonic conversion of material requires sunlight and nutrients, and takes place only in a well-lit, upper layer of the sea called the upper pelagic. After the phytoplankton have utilized the sunlight, water and the combination of chemicals available to them, they serve as food for the tiny drifting animals of the sea. These in turn are food for the larger organisms who are food for the still larger commercially valuable fish. The bulk of the world's catch of commercial fish - including the herring and mackerel, feed largely on plankton all their lives, as do the great baleen whales which strain vast numbers of plankton through their whalebone plates.

Fish need not be fenced in to be farmed. They will stay where the food supply is. By creating an artificial food supply in a given location, fish can be kept where they are wanted. Creating a food supply for the fish need not mean the adding of fish nutrients to the sea but the development of some means of mixing the nutrient-rich bottom layers of water in the ocean with the life-rich upper layers of water. Ocean Upwelling Pipes produce this mixing effect.

Wherever a natural upwelling of the bottom layers of water occurs, phytoplankton develop in abundance and a tremendous fish population can be found. By encouraging such an upwelling artificially, the fish population can be greatly increased at some more convenient location than the one nature provided. Developing this technique could probably increase the potential yield of the ocean many times over.

The means for sustaining this upwelling in the ocean can be produced using off-the-shelf systems such as upwelling pipes. Because phytoplankton need both sunlight and nutrients to survive, solar radiation from Biosolettas in conjunction with mineral-rich water from Upwelling Pipes can enhance phytoplankton growth. Biosolettas focused on the Upwelling sites can provide radiation energy for photosynthetic carbon assimilation of phytoplankton. An integration of Biosoletta systems with Upwelling Pipes will create an artificial food supply for commercially valuable fish in a given location. The development of this technique could eventually supply protein to the millions of people who inhabit megalopolises and super cities of the future packed along the coastal zone.

Space Light Reflectors and the Rejuvenation of Polluted Oceans
Space Light Reflectors focused on OTEC and kelp farm sites installed in polluted oceans could restore the life cycle to those dying waters and create usable energy for coastal inhabitants.

The Network of Space/Ocean Technology
Polluted oceans can destroy the web of marine life, from the tiniest plankton to the greatest whale. Polluted oceans could eventually destroy us. Space Light, OTEC and kelp farming systems could be integrated into one complete functioning system and have profound effects on the marine environment. Utilizing the currents of the desired ocean site, Space Light Reflectors could be focused just 'upstream' of an OTEC site and produce the desired effect of heating the surface water before the current brought it into the heat exchanging facility to produce electricity. The colder water from the OTEC facilities' Upwelling Pipe could then be discharged downstream where kelp and fish farms would benefit from the increased nutrient content of the water. Nutrients from the Upwelling Pipes of OTEC and kelp farm facilities, along with increased radiation for photosynthesis from Space Light Reflectors, could stimulate the network of feeding chains that, as the salts and carbon dioxide are returned to the sea by excretion and death, is seen to be one part of an elaborate chemical cycle restoring life to polluted waters.

Conclusion
Of all the Earth's resources, water is the most precious. Without it no plant, animal, or any form of life could exist. The Earth is the right size and distance from the sun to permit water to exist in all three forms. It is in its liquid form that water is essential to the life process and it is in liquid form that water is rare in the universe. Now, man has the opportunity to benefit from the vast ocean frontier using space technology and principles of Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion.

This study by Jason Klassi was first published for the XXXII Congress of the International Astronautical Federation in Rome Italy, September 6-12, 1981 and subsequently in the Oceans '85 conference journal.