Case
Plan Text
Plan Text
The United States federal government should carry out a five megawatt ocean
thermal energy conversion pilot project.
“Carry Out” definition
To perform or cause to be implemented
Collins English Dictionary 3, http://www.thefreedictionary.com/carry+out
carry out¶ vb (tr, adverb)¶ 1. to perform or cause to be implemented: I wish he could afford to carry out his plan.
Solvency
Inherency/Gov Key
Federal involvement is key to commercialize OTEC but will not occur
Becca Friedman 14, former Research Associate at the Council on Foreign Relations and Editor in Chief, Harvard
Political Review, “EXAMINING THE FUTURE OF OCEAN THERMAL ENERGY CONVERSION,”
http://www.oceanenergycouncil.com/examining-future-ocean-thermal-energy-conversion/
Although it may seem like an environmentalist’s fantasy, experts in oceanic energy contend that the technology to provide a truly infinite source of power to the United States already exists in
Despite enthusiastic projections and promising prototypes, however, a lack of
governmental support and the need for risky capital investment have stalled OTEC in its research and
development phase.¶ Regardless, oceanic energy experts have high hopes. Dr. Joseph Huang, Senior Scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
the form of Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC).
Administration and former leader of a Department of Energy team on oceanic energy, told the HPR, “If we can use one percent of the energy [generated by OTEC] for electricity and other
things, the potential is so big. It is more than 100 to 1000 times more than the current consumption of worldwide energy. The potential is huge. There is not any other renewable energy that
can compare with OTEC.”¶ The Science of OTEC¶ French physicist George Claude first explored the science of OTEC in the early twentieth century, and he built an experimental design in 1929.
Unfortunately for Claude, the high maintenance needed for an OTEC plant, especially given the frequency of storms in tropical ocean climates, caused him to abandon the project.
Nevertheless, his work demonstrated that the difference in temperature between the surface layer and the depths of the ocean was enough to generate power, using the warmer water as the
OTEC takes warm water and pressurizes it so that it becomes steam, then uses the
steam to power a turbine which creates power, and completes the cycle by using the cold water to return the
steam to its liquid state.¶ Huge Capital, Huge Risks¶ Despite the sound science, a fully functioning OTEC prototype has yet to
be developed. The high costs of building even a model pose the main barrier. Although piecemeal experiments
have proven the effectiveness of the individual components, a large-scale plant has never been built. Luis Vega of the
Pacific International Center for High Technology Research estimated in an OTEC summary presentation that a commercial-size five-megawatt OTEC plant
could cost from 80 to 100 million dollars over five years. According to Terry Penney, the Technology Manager at the National Renewable
Energy Laboratory, the combination of cost and risk is OTEC’s main liability. “We’ve talked to inventors and other
constituents over the years, and it’s still a matter of huge capital investment and a huge risk, and there are many [alternate
forms of energy] that are less risky that could produce power with the same certainty,” Penney told the HPR.¶ Moreover, OTEC is highly vulnerable to the elements in
heat source and the cooler water as a heat sink.
the marine environment. Big storms or a hurricane like Katrina could completely disrupt energy production by mangling the OTEC plants. Were a country completely dependent on oceanic
energy, severe weather could be debilitating. In addition, there is a risk that the salt water surrounding an OTEC plant would cause the machinery to “rust or corrode” or “fill up with seaweed
or mud,” according to a National Renewable Energy Laboratory spokesman.¶ Even environmentalists have impeded OTEC’s development. According to Penney, people do not want to see
it
seems unlikely that federal support for OTEC is forthcoming. Jim Anderson, co-founder of Sea Solar Power Inc., a company specializing in
OTEC technology, told the HPR, “Years ago in the ’80s, there was a small [governmental] program for OTEC and it was
abandoned…That philosophy has carried forth to this day. There are a few people in the Department of Energy
who have blocked government funding for this. It’s not the Democrats, not the Republicans. It’s a
bureaucratic issue.”¶ OTEC is not completely off the government’s radar, however. This past year, for the first time in a decade, Congress debated reviving the oceanic energy
OTEC plants when they look at the ocean. When they see a disruption of the pristine marine landscape, they think pollution.¶ Given the risks, costs, and uncertain popularity of OTEC,
program in the energy bill, although the proposal was ultimately defeated. OTEC even enjoys some support on a state level. Hawaii ’s National Energy Laboratory, for example, conducts OTEC
American interests in OTEC promise to remain largely academic
research around the islands. For now, though,
. The Naval Research Academy and
Oregon State University are conducting research programs off the coasts of Oahu and Oregon , respectively.¶ Do the Benefits Outweight the Costs?¶ Oceanic energy advocates insist that the
the changes in the economic climate over the past few
decades have increased OTEC’s viability. According to Huang, current economic conditions are more favorable to OTEC. At
$65-70 per barrel, oil is roughly six times more expensive than in the 1980s, when initial OTEC cost projections
were made. Moreover, a lower interest rate makes capital investment more attractive.¶ OTEC plants may also generate revenue from nonlong-term benefits of OTEC more than justify the short-term expense. Huang said that
energy products. Anderson described several additional revenue streams, including natural by-products such as hydrogen, ethanol, and desalinated fresh water. OTEC can also serve as a form
of aquaculture. “You are effectively fertilizing the upper photic zone…The fishing around the sea solar power plants will be among the best fishing holes in the world naturally,” Anderson said.
And, he added, these benefits are not limited to the United States . “Look at Africa , look at South America , look at the Far East . It is a gigantic pot of wealth for everybody… People are crying
as the U.S. government is dragging its feet, other countries are moving forward with their own
designs and may well beat American industry to a fully-functioning plant. In India , there has been significant
academic interest in OTEC, although the National Institute of Ocean Technology project has stalled due to a lack of funding. Japan ,
too, has run into capital cost issues, but Saga University ’s Institute of Ocean Energy has recently won prizes for advances in refinement of
the OTEC cycle. Taiwan and various European nations have also explored OTEC as part of their long-term energy strategy. Perhaps the most
for power.Ӧ In fact,
interest is in the Philippines , where the Philippine Department of Energy has worked with Japanese experts to select 16 potential OTEC sites.
We’re totally inherent - government funding was withheld – plan is still key – four
warrants
Vega 12 Luis Vega works at Hawaii Natural Energy Institute, School of Ocean And Earth Science And Technology,
University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, HI, USA, “Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion”, August 2012, Encyclopedia
of Sustainability and Science technology, http://hinmrec.hnei.hawaii.edu/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/OTECSummary-Aug-2012.pdf//OF
In the mid 1990s, an engineering team in Hawaii designed a 5 MW pre-commercial plant and made the information
available in the public domain [14]. However, because the price of petroleum fuels was relatively low and fossil
fuels were considered to be abundantly available, government funding for the pre-commercial plant could not be
obtained. Direct extrapolation from the experimental plants to commercial sizes, bypassing the pre-commercial
stage, would have required a leap of faith with high technical and economic risks that no financial institution was
willing to take. Important lessons learned can be summarized as follows: ● All components must be considered in
technical and economic assessments: OTEC plants consist of several components or subsystems that must be integrated into a system.
● The entire life cycle must be incorporated into design process. ● Equipment must be manufactured using
commercially available practices in existing factories. ● Embellishment leads to negative consequences creating
credibility barriers for others and unrealistic expectations from the public.
Tech Viable
OTEC is technically feasible and cost-competitive – advances in tech and high oil prices
OTEC 13 Ocean Thermal Energy Corporation is a private business specializing in the development of OTEC
technology, “Investors’ Common Questions”, 10/24/13, otecorporation.com,
http://www.otecorporation.com/investors-common-questions.html//OF
OTEC is now ready for large scale commercial development as a result of 2 changing factors in the last 20 years. First,
technical advances in the offshore oil industry, many of which are applicable to deep cold water pipe technology for OTEC, mean
small (5-20MW) land-based OTEC plants can now be built with off-the-shelf components, with minimal
technology/engineering risks for plant construction and operation. In fact, the authoritative US Government agency NOAA
issued a 2009 report concluding that, using a single cold water pipe (CWP), a 10MW OTEC plant is now “technically
feasible using current design, manufacturing, deployment techniques and materials.” Second, high oil prices have
made OTEC electricity pricing increasingly competitive, particularly in many tropical and sub-tropical locations
where electricity prices, based almost entirely on imported fossil fuels, are now in the exorbitant range of 40-60
cents/kwh. In addition to providing cheaper and more reliable energy, OTE offers its customers long term energy contracts with pricing caps.
This eliminates exposure to the volatility of rising oil prices, which are threatening to cripple many economies, particularly given tumultuous
events in the Middle East raising the likelihood of spiking oil prices.
Plan Solves
The plan is key to getting private companies on board- they are not content with
estimates, they require a demonstration
Vega 10 Dr. Luis Vega works at the Hawaii Natural Energy institute, “Economics of Ocean Thermal Energy
Conversion (OTEC): An Update”, 5/3/10, Ocean Technology Conference, http://hinmrec.hnei.hawaii.edu/wpcontent/uploads/2010/01/OTEC-Economics-2010.pdf//OF
The major conclusion reached in the earlier report continues to be applicable: there is a market for OTEC plants that produce electricity
and desalinated water, however, operational data must be obtained by building and operating demonstration
plants scaled down from sizes identified as cost effective. OTEC systems are in the pre-commercial phase with several
experimental projects having already demonstrated that the technology works but lacking the operational records
required to proceeding into commercialization. Adequately sized pilot projects must be operated in situ and for at
least one continuous year to obtain these records. Our analysis indicates that a pre-commercial or demonstration plants
sized at about 5 MW must be operated prior implementation of 50 to 100 MW commercial plants. Accounting for
externalities in the production and consumption of electricity and desalinated water might eventually help the development and expand the
applicability of OTEC. Unfortunately, it
is futile to use these arguments to convince the financial community to
invest in OTEC plants without an operational record. The major challenge continues to be the requirement to
finance relatively high capital investments that must be balanced by the expected but yet to be
demonstrated low operational costs. Perhaps a lesson can be learned from the successful commercialization of
wind energy due to consistent government funding of pilot or pre-commercial projects that led to appropriate
and realistic determination of technical requirements and operational costs in Germany, Denmark and Spain. In this context, by
commercialization we mean that equipment can be financed under terms that yield cost competitive electricity. This of course depends on
specific conditions at each site. Presently, for example, in Hawai’i cost competitiveness requires electricity produced at less than about 0.20
$/kWh. Our analysis indicates that, without subsidies or environmental credits, plants would have to be 50 MW or bigger to be cost competitive
in Hawai’i. In discussing OTEC’s potential it is important to remember that implementation of the first plant would take about 5-years after
order is placed. This is illustrated with the baseline schedule shown in Table 7. The time required for each major activity also applies to the precommercial or demonstration plant. Completion of the engineering design with specifications and shop drawings would take one-year.
Presently it is estimated that the licensing and permitting process through NOAA (in accordance with the OTEC Act) would take longer than 2years for commercial plants with the provision of exemptions from the licensing process for plants considered to be demonstration plants
because of the limited duration of the operational phase.
Stable, reliable government funding for a pilot plant is key to attract investment
Luis A. Vega 12, PhD in Engineering Sciences from UC San Diego, manager of the USDOE National Marine
Renewable Energy Center at the University of Hawaii, “Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion,” Encyclopedia of
Sustainability Science and Technology, Springer,August 2012 pp. 7296-7328, http://hinmrec.hnei.hawaii.edu/wpcontent/uploads/2010/01/OTEC-Summary-Aug-2012.pdf
OTEC systems are in the pre-commercial phase with several experimental projects having already demonstrated
that the technology works but lacking the operational records required to proceeding into
commercialization. Adequately sized pilot projects must be implemented to obtain these records. The largest OTEC
experimental system was sized at 0.25 MW; however, our analysis indicates that a pilot plant sized at about 5–10 MW is required [2].Major
challenges to OTEC commercialization can be summarized as follows:¶ ● How to overcome the lack of consistent
government funding that is required for industry to proceed from concept design to the required OTEC pre-
commercial demonstration phase.¶ ● How to streamline the process of obtaining licenses and permits, including the necessary Environmen-tal
Impact Statement (EIS). The process is project specific, expensive, and estimated to require at least2 years for commercial projects in the USA. ¶ ● How to evolve
into a situation represented by a one-stop-shop (as envisioned in the USA 1980 OTEC Act), where industry can process all documentation stipulated for licensing and
permitting under fed-eral, state, city, and county regulations avoiding duplicity, contradictory requirements, and interdepartmental jurisdictional disputes. ¶ In the
USA, the proposed location determines the various federal, state, and county agencies and regula-tions that apply. In addition to the licenses and permits that must
be secured from different agencies, the pro-ject must comply with several other applicable laws. The 1980 OTEC Act (OTECA) gives the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) of the Department of Commerce the authority for licens-ing the construction and operation of commercial OTEC plants. After
the promulgation of OTECA in1981, licensing regulations were developed by NOAA but, in 1996, NOAA rescinded these regulations and eliminated its OTEC office
because no applications had been received. NOAA is currently in the process of developing new licensing regulations. Under
OTECA,NOAA is required to coordinate with Coastal States and the US Coast Guard as well, as other Federal Agencies. An EIS would be required for each license. It is
majority if not all federal, state, and local requirements would be handled through the NOAA
licensing process. ¶ The original Act gave the Secretary of Energy the authority to exempt Test Plants from
expected that the
NOAA’s licensing requirements. A Test Plant was defined as “a test platform which will not operate as an OTEC facility or plantship after conclusion of
the testing period.” An EIS would be required if “there are other permits to be obtained that are considered a major federal action.” ¶ Perhaps a lesson can
be learned from the successful commercialization of wind energy that was due to consistent government
funding of pilot or pre-commercial projects that led to appropriate and realistic determination of technical
requirements and operational costs in Germany, Denmark, and Spain. In this context, by commercialization we mean that
equipment can be financed under terms that yield cost competitive electricity. This of course depends on specific conditions at each site.
The technology works but must be proven on the large scale- government plants are
the crucial test case to get investors on board
CRRC 09 The Coastal Response Research Center is a partnership between the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration (NOAA) Office of Response and Restoration (ORR) and the University of New Hampshire (UNH), to
develop new approaches to marine environmental response and restoration through research and synthesis of
information, “Technical Readiness of Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC)”, Coastal Response Research
Center, November 3, 2009, http://coastalmanagement.noaa.gov/otec/docs/otectech1109.pdf//OF
The qualitative analysis of the technical readiness of OTEC by experts at this workshop suggest that a < 10 MWe floating, closed-cycle
OTEC facility is technically feasible using current design, manufacturing, deployment techniques and materials. The technical readiness
and scalability to a > 100 MWe facility is less clear. Workshop participants concluded that existing platform, platform mooring, pumps and
turbines, and heat exchanger technologies are generally scalable using modular designs (several smaller units to achieve the total capacity
needed), however, the power cable, cold water pipe and the platform/pipe interface present fabrication and deployment challenges for ≥ 100
MWe facilities, and further research, modeling and testing is required . The experience gained during the construction,
deployment and operation of a ≤ 10 MWe facility will greatly aid the understanding of the challenges associated with a
≥ 100 MWe facility, and is a necessary step in the commercialization and development of OTEC.
Demonstration plant solves---spurs investment and overcomes barriers
Rod Fujita 12, Ph.D. in Marine Biology from the Boston University Marine Program, Director of R&D for the
Environmental Defense Fund’s Oceans Program, Alexander C. Markham, Julio E. Diaz Diaz, Julia Rosa Martinez
Garcia, Courtney Scarborough, Patrick Greenfield, Peter Blacke, Stacy E. Aguilera, “Revisiting ocean thermal energy
conversion,” Marine Policy Volume 36, Issue 2, March 2012, Pages 463–465, Science Direct
Increasing concerns regarding oil spills, air pollution, and climate change associated with fossil fuel use have increased the urgency of the search for renewable, clean sources of energy. This
potential of Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) to produce not only clean energy but also potable water,
refrigeration, and aquaculture products. Higher oil prices and recent technical advances have improved the economic and technical viability of OTEC, perhaps making
this technology more attractive and feasible than in the past. Relatively high capital costs associated with OTEC may require the integration of
energy, food, and water production security in small island developing states (SIDSs) to improve cost-effectiveness. Successful
assessment describes the
implementation of OTEC at scale will require the application of insights and analytical methods from economics, technology, materials engineering,
marine ecology, and other disciplines as well as a subsidized demonstration plant to provide operational data at nearcommercial scales.¶ & 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.¶ The search for renewable, carbon-free energy sources has intensified in recent years for a number of reasons.
Many countries continue to need more energy to fuel economic development and improve human welfare. Meanwhile, awareness of the current and potential consequences of climate
change has increased, as has the price of fossil fuels. Moreover, the Deepwater Horizon oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico has highlighted other costs of fossil fuel extraction and use, adding
impetus to the search for clean alternatives. Some countries have spurred interest in renewable energy with financial and tax incentives [1].¶ Many kinds of clean, renewable sources of energy
have the potential to address these concerns. A wide variety of energy sources will be needed to meet the twin challenges of alleviating global warming and poverty. The focus has so far been
on wind power, because costs have been comparable with those of oil or gas fired power plants [2] while costs associated with other renewables have been higher. Now that fossil fuel prices
have tripled in the last 20 years [3], other types of renewables may become cost-effective and even prove to have advantages over wind under certain conditions.¶ Ocean waves, currents, and
to provide power more continuously than wind over land; unsteady supply and storage issues continue to constrain wind farms [2].
Steadier still is Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC), which conceptually can provide base-load power almost
continuously [4,5]. OTEC converts the difference in temperature between the surface and deep layers of the ocean into electrical power. Warm surface water is used to vaporize a
offshore winds tend
working fluid with a low boiling point, such as ammonia, and then the vapor is used to drive a turbine and generator. Cold water pumped from the deep ocean is then used to re-condense the
working fluid [6,7]. The temperature differential must be greater than approximately 20 1C for net power generation [8]. Such differentials exist between latitudes 201 and 241 north and
south of the equator (e.g. tropical zones of the Caribbean and the Pacific) [8]. The global distribution of temperature gradients between these latitudes is shown in Fig. 1. The actual
distribution of feasible sites for OTEC will depend on other factors as well, such as proximity to shore and the potential to increase the temperature gradient by other means (e.g., by applying
OTEC may have numerous other advantages in addition to stability of power supply. OTEC power
production potential should be the highest during the summer months in warm latitudes, when demand is
typically also at a maximum in the tropics due to air conditioning [9]. At the pilot scale, OTEC plants have produced significant
amounts of freshwater (through condensation on the cold water pipes) with very little power consumption and without producing brine or other
waste heat from other industrial facilities).¶
pollution [6]. OTEC has also provided refrigeration and air conditioning without much additional power consumption, replacing much more energy-intensive air condition ing and refrigeration
several kinds of valuable aquaculture crops including lobsters, abalone, and micro- algae for the production of nutritional
have been produced in the effluent of pilot OTEC plants, potentially improving OTEC’s economic feasibility [11].¶ While OTEC sounds like a
systems [10]. Moreover,
supplements
panacea, clearly it is not – there may be serious environmental risks associated with OTEC, and there are certainly significant technical and economic obstacles that stand in the way of further
increasing fossil fuel prices, increasing demand for clean and renewable energy, and the potential for
OTEC to help alleviate increasingly urgent food and water security issues suggests that the time may be right to
revisit OTEC. Much has changed since 1881, when this technology was first conceived of by French physicist Jacques Arsene d’Arsonva, and later advanced by George Claude during the
progress. However,
1930s [6].¶ Claude attempted to construct an OTEC plant in Cuba in the 1930s, but abandoned the effort due to technology and infra structure constraints [6]. In the late 1970s, joint ventures
between the United States Department of Energy (DOE), the Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii, and various private compa nies resulted in a ‘‘mini-OTEC’’ barge deployed off Hawaii and also
a land-based OTEC plant on Hawaii. These produced net power of 18 and 103 kW, respectively [6]. Also notable are the joint ventures by private Japanese companies and the Tokyo Electric
Power Company, which resulted in an OTEC plant on the Pacific island of Nauru, generating 120 kW of gross power [12] and 30 kW of net power. This plant was used to power a school and
Although these plants
can be considered ‘‘proofs of concept’’, they did not generate enough operational data to enable a scale
up to a commer cial plant [6]. Efforts to scale up OTEC stalled in the 1970s in large part because the cost
competitiveness of OTEC relative to fossil fuel combustion was low due to the relatively low prices of oil and other fuels and the
large capital costs of OTEC. Several technological and deployment failures also impeded progress [6,14]. However,
recent increases in fossil fuel costs and technological improvements to OTEC that promise to reduce costs and
increase efficiency may be changing the economics of energy production in favor of OTEC.¶ Land-based OTEC plants
appear to be most cost-effective where deep water is very close to shore. This is because a large fraction of the capital costs arises from the
construction and emplacement of the pipes that bring deep seawater to the plant [15]. This limitation is being
addressed through the development of cheaper, lighter, and more durable materials for the seawater pipes [16],
improved emplacement methods [17], and new con cepts for basing OTEC plants on ships that can access cold,
deep seawater with a vertical pipe. These improvements have the potential to greatly broaden the applicability of
OTEC.¶ Many efforts are now underway to increase the efficiency of OTEC energy production, including the use of
new materials for heat exchangers [17,18] and novel ways to increase the temperature differential, e.g., by using waste heat from
other industrial processes [19] or passive solar energy [16]. Efficiency gains may help broaden OTEC applicability by decreasing its dependence on strong
other buildings on Nauru [13].¶ The majority of these projects have been considered successful because they generated significant amounts of net power.
natural temperature gradients.¶ In addition to these efforts to reduce OTEC costs and increase efficiency, efforts are also underway to increase the economic benefits associated with OTEC in
Pilot scale research has shown that OTEC can support a
number of the secondary benefits mentioned above (freshwater production, air conditioning, refrigeration, and
aquaculture) while still produ cing net power. It remains to be seen whether revenues and cost savings associated with these services will offset or exceed the
order to attract financing and meet multiple social goals, and to reduce environmental risks.
additional operating costs (including the acquisition of land to accommodate these additional facilities) that will be required. In some cases – for example, small island developing states or
remote locations – shortages of energy, water, food, or refrigera tion may make OTEC an appropriate technology even if profit margins are low.¶ While OTEC is sometimes touted as an energy
technology that is virtually free of environmental impacts [20], few studies have been conducted to test this claim. Several potential impacts could arise from OTEC and other ocean energy
technologies if they are not mitigated [21]. For example, OTEC requires large flows of deep seawater, which could result in the entrainment of large numbers of organisms and larvae with
unknown effects on deep-sea ecological processes and biodiversity [21]. Transporting large volumes of seawater from depth to the surface may also transport carbon that had been trapped
for relatively long periods of time in deepwater to the atmosphere as carbon dioxide; this effect is thought to be small; however, robust estimates have not yet been made [6]. Deep seawater
is much richer in nutrients than are most surface waters [22,23] and many nearshore ecosystems are very sensitive to nutrient input, particularly in the tropics [24,25]; hence, discharge would
be expected to cause eutrophication. Many tropical marine ecosystems are sensitive to temperature as well [24,25], and so coldwater discharge could result in coral bleaching and other
severe impacts. Coral reefs and seagrass meadows, typical of nearshore tropical environments, are also sensitive to turbidity [26,27] and thus may well suffer from the discharge of deep
seawater, which would be expected to be more turbid than the clear surface waters typical in these regions due to phytoplankton growth.¶ Adverse impacts of entrainment (and of measures,
discharge of cold,
nutrient-rich, seawater from OTEC plants can be avoided and is the key to generating the secondary benefits of
aquaculture production, freshwater production, and refrigeration /air conditioning. By routing the cold seawater through
facilities designed to yield these benefits, the water can be gradually warmed, perhaps to near-ambient levels.
Moreover, the cultivation of macroalgae for human consumption and for agar and carrageenan production may be a
viable and revenue-positive way of removing nutrients prior to discharge [28,29].¶ OTEC has the potential to provide
energy free of air pollution (including greenhouse gas emissions), freshwater, seafood and algal products, and refrigeration/air
condition at least in some areas of the world. These attributes make OTEC especially appealing to small island
states facing water shortages, food shortages, and pollution associated with fossil fuel combustion. The World Energy Council reports that
many countries, primarily small island developing states but also including India and Indonesia have expressed interest in OTEC [30]. While pilot scale OTEC plants have
performed admirably, all attempts to move OTEC from the pilot scale to commercial scale have failed so far.
Some have been hampered by technical problems, such as the failure of the cold water pipes [31]. Others have run
into gaps in financing [6,31]. A pre-commercial OTEC plant, perhaps at the 5 MW scale, that takes advantage of recent
technical improve ments and financing from countries and firms participating in carbon offset programs, would provide valuable operations and
economic data that could help overcome the technical, psychological, and financial impediments to OTEC
commercialization.
such as chlorination, required to keep pipe openings free of fouling organ isms) may be difficult to prevent or mitigate since they will occur at depth. However,
Climate Leadership
OTEC key to climate leadership
OTEC development is key to US climate leadership—its energy potential makes it
uniquely key to establish a lead
Moore 6 (Bill, editor and chief of EV World an institution focused on technological policy, “OTEC Resurfaces”, EV
World 2006 [Chached],
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:0BmRdQVKKScJ:www.evworld.com/article.cfm%3Fstory
id%3D1008%26first%3D3457%26end%3D3456+&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us, Accessed 7/1/14, MB)
One of the by-products of the condensation is fresh water, if the system is open-cycle, meaning the working fluid is seawater. In a closed-cycle
system, which typically uses ammonia as the working fluid, fresh water is not produced, but the size of the turbine can be significantly smaller,
reducing capital costs.¶ Because of the price of oil and still relatively low interest rates, Krock believes the time is ripe for
the re-emergence of OTEC which is why he started Ocean Engineering and Energy Systems or OCEES, one of a handful of companies
laboring to launch commercial OTEC systems in the next few years.¶ Another key factor in the OTEC revival story is the
development of a new technology known as the Kalina-cycle, which Krock said is superior to the approaches he and Penney
investigated in the 1980s.¶ He explained that while the Kalina-cycle is a closed-cycle system, it uses two working fluids -- ammonia and
seawater -- instead of just one.¶ "It's sort of a thermodynamic trick that you can play on the working fluid if you have a dual working fluid and
you can get more net power out the same difference in temperature than you can with just a single working fluid. It's a detail of
thermodynamics that would take a little while for me to explain...," he said. "It is a proven technology and is superior to the one
that is before.¶ "There have also been improvements in our ability to access the deep water because the oil companies have deep water
installations down to two thousand meters and more in the Gulf of Mexico, for example. So the technology for access to the deep
water has improved."¶ Krock also noted that there have been improvements in other materials needed to make the process feasible.¶
"We know better how to make floating platforms. We know better how to make large cold water pipes, and all
manner of other improvements."¶ In addition to these improvements, he said that "we are better able to integrate the multiple
products that can be supplied by this OTEC process... fresh water, aquaculture, the cold water air conditioning and hydrogen production."¶ And
here is the newest wrinkle in OTEC: hydrogen. Imagine hectares (or acres) square mini-islands gently drifting with the currents in the tropical
belt of warm water around the earth's equator, roughly between Hawaii in the north and Samoa in the south. 24-hours a day they produce
both electricity and fresh water, but they are also 3000 miles from the nearest mainland.¶ "There is nothing better than working with
nature," Krock commented. "This is simply a model on a humanscale of the world's hydrological cycle." When compared to other
renewable energy sources such as wind and biomass, he calls the heat energy stored in the ocean as the "elephant
in the room".¶ Krock envisions a plant made of floating concrete that is five square acres in size and could include fish processing facilities,
ocean mineral mining and refining and the aforementioned rocket launch pad. An earlier Lockheed design was circular, measured some 100
meters in diameter and would generate 500 megawatts of electric power.¶ "This is a transformation of endeavors from land to the ocean. The
world is 70 percent oceans, 30 percent [land]... which we have used up to a large extent. The only major resource we have left is the ocean. This
is a mechanism to utilize the ocean."¶ "We do not have the luxury of waiting far into the future because I am sure you have read peak oil is
coming... Unless we do this now, a transformation of this magnitude takes time. We have to allocate at least 50 years to do
this, but that means we have to start now, because in fifty years we won't have the luxury of having another energy source to let us do the
construction for these things.¶ "The
United States is the best placed of any country in the world to do this," he
contends. "The United States is the only country in the world
of any size whose budget for its navy is bigger than the
budget for its army."¶ It's his contention that this will enable America to assume a leadership position in OTEC
technology, allowing it to deploy plants in the Atlantic, Caribbean and Pacific, but he offers a warming.¶ "If we
are stupid enough not to take advantage of this, well then this will be China's century and not the American
century."¶ Krock is currently negotiating with the U.S. Navy to deploy first working OTEC plant offshore of a British-controlled island in the
Indian Ocean -- most likely Diego Garcia though he wouldn't confirm this for security purposes.¶ He is also working with firms in Britain and
Netherlands and will be headed to China for talks with the government in Beijing.¶ "The Chinese know very well that they cannot build there
futures on oil," he stated, noting that China's is investing large sums of money in a blue water navy. "The United States will be playing catch-up
in this technology. We're here. We're willing to do it. We're doing it with the Navy." He expects to put his first plant to sea sometime in 2008
after constructing it, mostly likely, in Singapore.¶ "We simply have to look at the all the alternatives [to conventional fossil
fuels and nuclear power] and this is, hands down, the only alternative that's big enough to replace oil."¶ END STORY
The US is behind in the clean energy sector— only investment and production of new
renewable technology establishes the US as a green leader
Norris 10 (Teryn, president of Americans for Energy Leadership, “How America Can Lead the Clean Energy
Race”, HuffPost: The Blog 8/3/10, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/teryn-norris/how-america-can-leadthe_b_668770.html, accessed 6/30/14, MB)
The United States must quickly pursue a new growth agenda, and clean energy technology offers one of our greatest
opportunities. For over a decade, the primary goal of U.S. climate and clean energy advocates has been to establish a strong carbon pollution
cap. This agenda is dead for the foreseeable future, and precious time has been wasted. The United States must quickly pivot from
pollution regulation to an aggressive clean energy
competitiveness and innovation agenda, and we can begin with new
leadership in the next Congress.¶ Securing our competitiveness in this sector requires a comprehensive industrial development
strategy (see our report, “The Power to Compete”), including robust and targeted federal support for clean energy research and
innovation, manufacturing, and domestic market demand, as well as infrastructure, education, and industry cluster formation. This
is necessary for a range of technologies, including but not limited to onshore and offshore wind, solar PV and thermal, advanced geothermal,
hybrid and electric vehicles and batteries, carbon capture and storage, nuclear, smart-grid, and high-speed rail.¶ Fortunately, this approach
includes several incremental, actionable components that can garner greater support than comprehensive and controversial cap and trade. The
first is research, development, and demonstration (RD&D), which is necessary to invent new clean energy technologies,
components, and manufacturing processes; improve the cost and performance of existing technologies and processes; and
demonstrate proof of concept for advanced and higher-risk systems. The next Congress can start by increasing federal clean energy RD&D to at
least $15-20 billion per year and making the R&D tax credit permanent. This target represents a growing bipartisan consensus and contrasts
with the $30 billion federal budget for health research and $80 billion for military R&D, and only $3-5 billion for energy R&D today.¶ These
strategic federal investments, and those identified below, can be financed through a variety of modest revenue streams, such as offshore
drilling royalties, an oil import fee, reduced fossil fuel subsidies, or a small fee on fossil fuel electricity. For example, an “energy security fee” of
$3.50 per barrel of imported oil would raise approximately $15 billion annually; reduced fossil fuel subsidies as proposed by the administration
could generate upwards of $35 billion over ten years; a utilities electricity fee could raise at least $2 billion annually, as included in the KerryLieberman American Power Act; and royalties on new offshore continental shelf drilling could raise more than $100 billion over twenty years.¶
The second piece is clean energy manufacturing, which can be a powerful engine for middle-class jobs and wealth creation and is
essential for scaling our industry, establishing long-lasting supply chains and clusters, and reducing our trade deficit. The federal
government can accomplish this through low-cost financing, tax incentives, technical assistance, and direct investment. Congress
can start by extending the 48C advanced manufacturing tax credit, creating a revolving manufacturing loan fund similar to the Investments for
Manufacturing Progress and Clean Technology (IMPACT) Act, and leveraging the Department of Commerce’s Manufacturing Extension
Partnership.¶ Third,
strong domestic demand will attract leading companies to locate manufacturing,
supply chain, and R&D operations at home; accelerate learning-by-doing to achieve improvements in price and performance,
as well as manufacturing processes; and incentivize U.S. firms to invest in clean
energy technology development and
deployment. Even without a carbon price, we can stimulate demand for advanced technologies with direct government procurement,
especially through the Department of Defense, and through a clean energy deployment administration, renewable portfolio standard, and
targeted feed-in tariffs. Unlike a carbon price, these policies can be designed to favor less-mature technologies and achieve
rapid learning curves and economies of scale.¶ Beyond these three core components, at least three other supportive mechanisms are
necessary: enabling infrastructure, education and workforce development, and industry cluster formation. For infrastructure, developing a
smart electricity grid is necessary to integrate and manage renewable power; electrical vehicle infrastructure, such as charging stations, is
necessary to electrify transportation; and rapid mass transit like high-speed railways is necessary to improve transportation efficiency and
reduce reliance on personal vehicles.
US leadership k2 spillover
Only US climate leadership can solve warming—key to spur multilateral climate
cooperation and spillover
Jones 14 (Bruce, writer for Brookings Institution, “American Leadership Required for Progress on Global Climate
and Energy Governance”, Brookings 3/28/14, http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/planetpolicy/posts/2014/05/28american-leadership-global-climate-energy-jones, accessed 7/10/14, MB)
With a growing recognition of the severity of climate threats, we are beginning to see what I call the early beginning of the early beginning on
climate governance—moves towards a governing structure that will help us manage our impact on the environment. These efforts are by no
means been perfect, and several challenges still remain. However, with a
strengthening hand in the global energy
landscape, it is time for the U.S. to lead progress towards a global energy and climate system. ¶ New Hope
for Climate and Energy Governance¶ As recently as five years ago, there was little hope for climate and energy governance. The 2009 U.N.
Climate Conference in Copenhagen was heralded as a significant opportunity, but was ultimately mired in confusion and doubt.¶ Recently,
however, there has been a proliferation of institutions for different aspects of global energy governance. Now, a veritable flotilla of
international and regional bodies, groups and institutions, formal and informal, are set at the problem of trying to manage different parts of the
energy dynamic.¶ …But Challenges Still Remain¶ Collectively, though, these new initiatives, and the older organizations they both complement
and compete with, are far from forming an effective system of governance that can guide us through the resource and climate challenges that
lie ahead, which include:¶ Managing the new price instability – With changing patterns of oil flows, uncertainty about growth levels in the
emerging powers, and the potential for major instability in the Persian Gulf, price volatility will remain a feature of the global energy market.
We’ll need to retool the mechanisms we have, primarily the International Energy Agency, to promote price stability.¶ Asia’s contested networks
– INVESTMENT in energy infrastructure in Asia will set the patterns for energy consumption in Asia for decades—the question of whether the
next wave of infrastructure spending in Asia is “green” or “black” is hugely consequential in economic, energy and climate terms. And
investment in energy networks in Asia will only be more complicated if geopolitical tensions mount.¶ The revolution is not yet born – We
need a revolution built around renewables and efficiency, a revolution that is necessary if we’re to have a hope of attaining a
less-than-2-degree rise in average global temperatures.¶ Making energy sustainable – We need to ensure that our energy use is sustainable not
just in climate terms, but also in terms of energy access for the poor, the sustainability of energy growth in large developing countries and the
impacts of ENERGY PRICES on food insecurity. U.N. initiatives may provide a good venue for the debate, but do not
necessarily have the political space and resources to deliver.¶ The U.S. is Poised to Lead Renewed Efforts¶ Though these
challenges are large, they aren’t insurmountable. With dedicated leadership, the United States is uniquely positioned to lead
efforts at energy and climate governance. It has more capacity than most countries—arguably, more capacity than
the rest of the G-20 combined—to push and cajole the evolving global energy governance system into greater
effectiveness. And on the climate front, it can use the power of the American market to shift the balance of
incentives away from coal and oil and toward a more sustainable mix of gas, renewables and increased efficiency .¶
Of course, the U.S. cannot force these changes alone. INDEED, some combination of American leadership, shared interests with
the emerging powers and G-20 creativity is the most likely channel for knitting a more effective system for energy and climate
governance. But American leadership is necessary to move the system forward. With rising energy production,
America’s hand in global energy markets is strengthening; time to play it.
US climate leadership spurs effective spillover and causes international
bandwagoning—responsibility for current emissions and technological prowess make
the US uniquely key
Claussen 7 (Eileen, president of Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, “A NEW CLIMATE TREATY: US
LEADERSHIP AFTER KYOTO”, Center for Climate and Energy Solutions 2007,
http://www.c2es.org/newsroom/articles/new-climate-treaty-us-leadership-after-kyoto, accessed 6/30/14 MB)
¶ For years, despite a steady accumulation of science showing the clear and present dangers of global climate change, efforts toward an effective international
response have been at a virtual standstill. The principal reason is that the United States has refused to play. But with Washington now seemingly on a course to enact mandatory limits on US
greenhouse gas emissions, it is plausible to begin envisioning a multilateral solution to this quintessentially global challenge. It is, in other words, time to contemplate a new climate change treaty. ¶ ¶ The urgency of the task is
irrefutable. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s latest assessment concluded with 90 percent confidence that human activity is warming the planet and warned of irreversible and potentially catastrophic
consequences if emissions continue unabated. Politically as well, the next few years represent a critical window for action. The emission limits assumed by most industrialized countries under the Kyoto Protocol expire in 2012.
What momentum the treaty has achieved and the multibillion-dollar carbon market it has spawned may well be lost unless a new agreement can be forged. ¶ Any new treaty will be environmentally effective and politically feasible
only to the degree that it successfully engages and binds all of the world’s major economies. Coming to terms with cost and equity while also bridging the gap between developed and developing is an extraordinary diplomatic
What is needed above all
is US leadership, for no country bears greater responsibility for climate change, nor has greater
capacity to catalyze a global response.¶ Responsibility is measured most directly in terms of emissions, and it
challenge. Meeting it will require fresh thinking and approaches, a genuine readiness to compromise and a collective political will that, while perhaps emerging, is by no means assured.
right now
should surprise no one that history’s greatest economic power is also the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitter . By
the tremendous enterprise, prosperity, and technological prowess that have contributed so
heavily to the atmospheric burden uniquely qualify the United States to lead a low-carbon transition.
the same token,
no nation has done more to advance scientific understanding of the causes and consequences of global
warming. But thus far, the US contribution to the global effort largely ends there.¶ For the first time, however, US politics are beginning to favor real climate action. Even before the recent Democratic takeover of
Indeed,
Congress, momentum was building for mandatory measures to reduce US emissions. As on many other environmental issues, individual states are leading the way, with California once again at the forefront. Business leaders,
sensing that carbon constraints are inevitable and fearing a patchwork of state rules, are increasingly calling for a uniform national approach. Ten major companies, including General Electric, DuPont, and Alcoa, recently joined with
four nonprofits in the US Climate Action Partnership to push for mandatory emission limits. Several bipartisan bills now before Congress would mandate emission cuts of 60 to 80 percent by 2050. ¶ With the enactment of
mandatory US measures probably occurring no later than 2010, the global politics of climate change will be thoroughly transformed. Having resolved what it will do at home, the United States will know far better what it can
To avoid losing competitive advantage to countries without emission controls, the United States will have
a strong incentive to rejoin and strengthen the global climate effort.¶ For the struggling multilateral process, the United States’ re-entry cannot come soon
commit to abroad.
enough. After President Bush’s outright rejection of Kyoto, other countries rallied around the treaty and brought it into force. But without the United States and Australia, the protocol encompasses only about one third of global
emissions. Even if all countries meet their targets, which is unlikely, global emissions in 2012 would still be 30 percent higher than in 1997, when Kyoto was negotiated. While talks on post-2012 commitments have begun, under the
European leaders are floating ambitious numbers, but Japan and
others have made clear they are not taking on new commitments without movement by the United States and
major developing countries. The political reality is that the negotiations are headed nowhere, unless they are
somehow broadened or linked to bring in the other major players. ¶ With the United States back at the table, there could be a way forward. Once the largest
emitter says it is ready to deal, China and other emerging economies might also be willing . Under this more hopeful scenario, what could a future climate treaty look like?
treaty’s terms they contemplate targets only for those countries that already have them.
To begin with, it must commit all the major economies. Today, 25 countries account for 85 percent of global emissions (as well as 70 percent of global population and 85 percent of global GDP). Environmentally, no long-term
strategy to cut global emissions can succeed without them.
Politically, it is imperative that all major economies be on board. All share concerns about costs and
This requires binding commitments.
competitiveness, and none can sustain an ambitious climate effort without confidence that others will contribute their fair share.
But a new treaty should be
flexible, allowing countries to take on different types of commitments. Circumstances vary widely among the major economies, and the policies that can address climate change in the context of national priorities will vary from one
to the other. Countries will need different pathways forward. ¶ As the US climate debate advances, the question of international engagement will inevitably rise to the forefront.Already, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee has
passed a resolution calling for the United States to negotiate under the Framework Convention to establish commitments for all major-emitting countries. To some, the goal may appear distant, if not wholly fanciful. But if and
the United States is prepared to lead, others, too, will be far better able to muster the necessary political will. Therein lies our only
real hope for a new global compact to confront global warming.
when
US climate leadership uniquely key to influence the green policies of other nations
Shine 12 (Connor, journalist for Las Vegas Sun, “Expert: International solution to climate change hinges on U.S.
leadership”, Las Vegas Sun 11/14/12, http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2012/nov/14/expert-internationalsolution-climate-change-hinge/, Accessed 6/30/14, MB)
Despite repeated attempts over the past decades to create a plan to curb carbon emissions on a global scale, international efforts to
stymie the growing threat of climate change have largely fallen short, Brookings Institution Fellow Joshua Meltzer said during
a lecture at UNLV Tuesday night.¶ Treaties like the Kyoto Protocol and international summits like the 2009 climate change conference
in Copenhagen, Denmark, have largely failed to address the problem of global warming, Meltzer said, while a carbon cap and trade system
in the European Union has had mixed success. A 2009 bill to implement a carbon cap and trade system in the United States failed to pass, while
the issue of climate change was largely ignored during the recent presidential election. ¶ “It is torturously slow; it is
invariably most of the time disappointing,” Meltzer said of international climate change negotiations.¶ During his lecture at the Greenspun Hall
auditorium on UNLV’s campus, Meltzer, a global economy and development fellow, discussed the obstacles to finding an international solution
to climate change and some of the unexpected consequences a piecemeal approach to reducing carbon emissions can have on trade.¶ To
address climate change on a global level, Meltzer said the United States needs to take a leadership role in
international policy development and demonstrate it is committed to substantially reducing carbon
emissions.¶ “We will unfortunately not get anywhere until the U.S. gets serious about climate change ,” Meltzer said.
“U.S. leadership on all range of international issues is always key. Once the United States gets that
interest and commits to action … I think we will see in fairly quick succession a whole lot of countries
following.”¶ Meltzer said if countries don’t coordinate their actions and develop a comprehensive plan, a
fragmented approach to regulating carbon emissions could have negative effects on economic competitiveness
and trade.¶ Meltzer used the recently implemented European Union Aviation Directive, which requires airline companies to participate in the
union’s carbon cap and trade system, as an example of the potential unforeseen consequences of climate change policy.¶ The directive requires
the aviation industry, which contributes about 2.5 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, to purchase carbon permits to cover emissions
by planes traveling into or out of a member nation airport, even if the airline is based in a different country.¶ Meltzer said the cap and trade
system could incentivize airlines to route their planes to avoid European Union airports as much as possible, an inefficiency that could lead to
more carbon emissions under the previous system.¶ “If you put a price on carbon in advance of other countries … essentially you’re putting a
cost on your industry which other industries in other countries are not facing,” he said.¶ Meltzer was the fourth of five speakers in the
Brookings Mountain West’s fall lecture series, which has also featured discussions on natural gas and clean energy. The last lecture on Nov. 27
will feature Brookings Senior Fellow Ross Hammond discussing social dynamics and public policy.
US lead on climate change is a prerequisite to action by every other nation—only the
US has the credibility and global influence necessary to solve
Meltzer and Langley 14 (Joshua, a fellow in Global Economy and Development at the Brookings Institution
and an adjunct professor at the Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies, Claire, Research
Associate @ Global Economy and Development, “Better Science and a Worse Outlook: The Need for U.S.
Leadership on Climate Change”, Brookings Institute 5/6/14,
http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/planetpolicy/posts/2014/05/06-us-leadership-climate-change-meltzer-langley,
Accessed 6/30/14, MB)
US Government Action¶ Governments are moving to reduce emissions and U.S. action remains key, not only because
it is the second largest emitter, but because U.S. leadership is a precondition to ambitious action by large
developing countries such as China. In June 2013 the White House released a climate action plan, which contains provisions for
both adaptation and mitigation measures at the domestic level. The plan includes over 60 policy proposals designed to support the U.S.
international target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by approximately 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020.¶ The White House
climate action plan, however, has no ambitions for pricing carbon —the most economically efficient way of getting producers
and consumers to take into account the costs for the climate of CO2 emissions. Unfortunately, this reflects political reality in the
United States. In 2009, following the election of President Obama, Congress sought to pass a cap and trade bill that would price carbon by
capping CO2 emissions. While the House of Representatives passed the bill, the inability of the Senate to act buried the prospect of cap and
trade and possibly all efforts to price carbon in the United States, at least in the near term.¶ The absence of any realistic prospect that Congress
will act constructively on climate change anytime soon means that federal government action to reduce U.S. CO2 emissions has had to rely
increasingly on executive action. In particular, this means using Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) authority to reduce CO2 emissions from
the power sector and tighten fuel efficiency standards for existing cars and trucks—representing 31 percent and 27 percent of U.S. greenhouse
gas emissions respectively. These efforts are significant and have the potential to bend the trajectory of U.S. emissions. Indeed, according to
some estimates, new EPA regulation of emissions from the power sector will reduce total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions up to 700 million tons
of carbon per year in 2020, and new standards to improve the fuel economy of vehicles could reduce annual emissions by a further 50 million
tons of carbon in 2035—or a combined 11 percent of current U.S. emissions. However, these EPA regulations are being challenged in the courts
and the extent to which they will be successfully implemented and over what time remains unclear. The White House plan also
requires federal agencies to consume 20 percent of their electricity from renewable sources by 2020 and to
increase their energy efficiency, which are additional to the tighter energy efficiency standards for appliances
developed by the Department of Energy.¶ While all this action is encouraging, it remains the case that more is needed to
stabilize temperatures at 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels. In this regard, what the United States is
prepared to do post-2020 will determine whether this leads the world onto a more sustainable emissions
trajectory.
Clean tech race—Generic Renewables Key
The US is lagging in clean tech development—investment and manufacturing of
renewables is key to bring back the US lead
Kaften 12 (Cheryl, writer for PVMagazine, “US must develop national cleantech policy”, PVMagazine 6/12/12,
http://www.pv-magazine.com/news/details/beitrag/us-must-develop-national-cleantech-policy-_100007296/,
accessed 7/5/14, MB)
As reported yesterday, in its Clean ECONOMY: Living Planet, the World Wildlife Fund–Netherlands (WWF), found that the U.S. cleantech
sector grew 17 percent between 2010 and 2011, to €37 billion (US$46.3 billion). While expansion slowed from an average of 24 percent
annually between 2008 and 2010, it still exceeded average global cleantech sector growth.¶ Despite this, the organization says the
country
must develop a stable policy support system for cleantech products at the national level – and align
policies across states – in order to support an industry that is aiming to be number one worldwide.¶
Replacing short-term PROGRAMS with a more comprehensive, long-term approach would create more stable
demand and offer companies greater investment security, according to the analysts. Meanwhile, long-term R&D roadmaps
should be matched with long-term R&D budgets that enable researchers to achieve their objectives. ¶ "Other
countries are moving on clean technology opportunities and making big investments in the industry, while U.S.
policymakers in Washington seem to be content to let all the recent growth in the United States wither on the vine by
not providing policy certainty and not going after growth opportunities," said Marty Spitzer, director of U.S. Climate Policy for the
WWF. "It's stable, visionary policy that's driving the market leaders to the top."¶ Frank Felder, PhD, director of the Center for
Energy, Economic & Environmental Policy at Rutgers UNIVERSITY IN NEW JERSEY, further told pv magazine, "I agree that the first order of
business for the United States is to have a long-term, stable energy policy that internalizes all of the costs of using fossil fuels,
including their contribution to climate change; other air emissions that adversely affect health and property; and in the case of oil, the
associated costs on national security. Once such a policy is in place, then RESEARCH and development and manufacturing of clean
and cleaner energy technologies will follow."¶ On the industry side, Cassandra Kling, vice president of Sales for Suntuity, thinks
that, with just a little fine-tuning, the U.S. could regain the lead. "It was just a few short years ago that the United States was the global
leader in manufacturing for SOLAR ENERGY panels," she recalled in an interview with pv magazine.¶ "We could easily regain that title
with a just a few tweaks to some of the programs that already are in place in America. Also, it’s very important to note
that, while we would like to have the manufacturing back here, the true generation of jobs comes in the form of sales, marketing,
construction, and financing – and all of these factors cannot be exported to create high- value jobs in the United States. A strong national
policy supporting renewable energy and energy efficiency would be a huge boost to the U.S. ECONOMY ."
The clean tech race is happening now and the US is behind—only a commitment to
new renewable tech deters China’s rise
Sun 13 (Marjorie, Sun is a multimedia journalist based in San Francisco and blogs on China and energy at
marjoriesun.com, “US signals new clean technology race with China”, chinadialogue.com 2/19/13,
https://www.chinadialogue.net/article/show/single/en/5718-US-signals-new-clean-technology-race-with-China,
accessed 7/5/14, MB)
Climate change was all but ignored by US President Barack Obama and his Republican rival Mitt Romney during the presidential
campaign. So environmentalists were heartened, if not thrilled, when Obama declared at his inauguration a call to action on climate change and
clean technology: “We must lead it. We cannot cede to other nations the technology that will power new jobs and
new industries.”¶ But where does the US currently stand in clean energy compared to the unspoken competitor in Obama’s
speech -- China? And what more can the US do to lead in renewables?¶ In terms of production and installation of
renewable energy resources, the US actually lags behind China. This worries some experts who argue that it is
critical for the country to recapture the manufacturing lead .¶ Read also: A darker side to China's clean tech¶ It may still lead on
innovation in renewables, but even that is in danger of slipping, according to a recent report on clean tech by the Pew Charitable Trust. It says
the US is not among the top 10 countries in investment growth rate over the past five years and ranks 10th in the world
in its installed clean energy capacity growth rate since 2006.¶ It is also ranked just eighth among the G-20 nations in
terms of investment intensity, which compares clean energy investments with national economic output.¶ Take wind power. In just a
few years, China has outpaced all other countries in installations. For four years in a row China has overtaken the United States in
wind energy, according to a February report by Bloomberg New Energy Finance. At this rate,
China is set to beat its goal of
installing 100 gigawatts of wind power by 2015 by a year. (Reality check: About 20-25% of China’s capacity isn’t hooked up to the
grid mainly because grid construction hasn’t kept up with wind installations and also due to technical issues, says Tom Pellman, an analyst in
Vestas’ Beijing office.)¶ China's great leap¶ So how did China leapfrog to become a world leader in wind (and solar)? The central government
set important national goals to jumpstart the industry: It established targets to reduce its carbon intensity -- that’s
the amount of energy used to produce a unit of GDP -- and targets for solar and wind power installations. Central and local
governments have supported renewables through a variety of subsidies.¶ In contrast, “US energy policy lacks a
clear sense of purpose or direction,” says the Pew report.¶ In wind power, the lack of consistent, long-term support by the federal
government hampers growth, says Pellman. Wind companies laid off hundreds of workers last year when it became uncertain whether
Congress would renew a critical one-year tax credit. Congress did extend the tax subsidy under the fiscal cliff deal, but just for one more year.
Now the US wind industry is pressing for a five-year extension of the credit. ¶ Another problem for US cleantech companies: venture capital has
tightened considerably. Last year, global investment in cleantech dropped to US$6.5 billion, a 33% decline, according to Cleantech Group
research. Cleantech has proved to be much more capital intensive than investors anticipated. Seeking faster returns, they’re betting instead on
internet-related companies.¶ As such, when Chinese companies come calling with money to tap US innovation, cash-strapped American
cleantech firms welcome the opportunity. Case in point: Wanxiang’s winning bid of US$257 million to purchase the Boston-based car battery
maker A123.¶ Chinese cleantech companies have seen venture capital fall off too, however, the central government is indirectly shoring them
up. For instance, in February, in the wake of off-the-charts smog in Beijing and elsewhere, China announced a new national target for solar
installations, catapulting it from 21 gigawatts to 35 gigawatts by 2015.¶ One
area where the US is still the envy of China is
innovation. “US is certainly the hub for innovative technology,” says Chivas Lam, a partner in Qiming Capital in Shanghai. But numerous
expert panels say the US should spend two to four times more on energy R&D over its 2012 level of US$4.36 billion.¶ At
the same time, “China is in fact investing in and succeeding in green innovation...[which]
could play a crucial role in
the global transition to a low-carbon economy,” writes Joanna Lewis, an assistant professor at Georgetown University, who
examines China’s wind industry in her new book, Green Innovation in China.¶ Innovation battle¶ China’s progress in innovation is fostered, in
part, by a variety of collaborative programmes between the two countries. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has a longstanding
partnership with Chinese researchers to improve energy efficiency. The San Francisco-based China Sustainable Energy Program, part of the
Energy Foundation, supports Chinese research in many areas.¶ But for US companies, protecting intellectual property and other assets is a
major and very real concern. An expert at a major US company said in an interview that he was about to give his Chinese counterparts a tour of
a south-eastern utility’s distribution centre last year only to be told at the last minute that the Chinese guests would be barred because its
system was currently under cyberattack from China. ¶ In a separate example, American Superconductor Corporation has sued Chinese wind
turbine maker Sinovel for infringing intellectual property rights.¶ So who’s winning the race in cleantech? It depends on how you
measure, says Nathaniel Bullard, an analyst at Bloomberg New Energy Finance. Bullard says the two countries are “joined at the hip. We import
a lot but we also export a lot.” The US imports Chinese solar panels, but it exports capital equipment to make the panels. “We didn’t insist on
keeping our consumer electronics manufacturing or chip manufacturing. We need a clearer assessment of what constitutes leadership.Ӧ It is
worth noting that after barreling ahead of the US in solar and wind manufacturing, China is now struggling to cope with
overcapacity – as well as accusations of dumping of products on the market in both Europe and the US.¶ The bottom line for the planet, of
course, is whether all this competition in cleantech is slashing carbon emissions. And on that there is a long, long way to go. In 2012, US carbon
pollution dropped about 4% to 5,279 million tonnes largely due to a weak economy. China’s, however, climbed more than 3% to 8,598 million
tonnes, according to estimates by the US Energy Information Administration. Per capita, Americans account for nearly three times more carbon
dioxide emissions compared to the Chinese.
UQ ext- US losing clean tech race now/No climate leadership
China is winning the clean tech race now—only increased investment in new
renewable energy allows the US to retake the lead
Hargreaves 13 (Steve, reporter for CNN, “China trounces U.S. in green energy investments”, CNN Money
4/17/14, http://money.cnn.com/2013/04/17/news/economy/china-green-energy/, accessed 7/10/14, MB)
China retook its top spot as global leader in the clean energy race, attracting nearly twice the green energy
investment dollars last year as the United States did.¶ Investors plowed $65 billion into Chinese wind farms, solar panel arrays and
other clean energy projects in 2012, a 20% increase over the year prior, according to a report released Wednesday by Pew Charitable Trusts
and Bloomberg New Energy Finance. The numbers reflect only private investments in power projects, and do not include government subsidies
or R&D money.¶ China's total made it the world's top destination for green energy investments in 2012, a position it held in
2009 and 2010 but lost to the United States in 2011.¶ In the United States, green energy investments
last year plummeted 37%
to $35.6 billion, although the country still came in second worldwide.¶ Related: Fracking comes to China¶ Analysts attribute China's
success to its stable, long-term incentives, such as its target goal to get 20% of its energy from renewable sources
by 2030. China's clean-energy push is spurred partly by its mounting pollution problems.¶ While some U.S. states have set their own targets,
there is no federal policy on the matter. The federal approach mainly consists of a variety of tax breaks that depend on being
renewed every few years.¶ "When a country has a strong target and a consistent policy, investors will go invest," said Phyllis Cuttino, director of
the clean energy program at Pew.¶ Worldwide, private investments in clean energy totaled $269 billion, down 11% from the year earlier.
Cuttino said the declines reflected expiring subsidies and incentives in a number of key markets, including the United States and Europe, amid
ongoing fiscal pressure.¶ Philippines tap energy from Earth's core ¶ Philippines tap energy from Earth's core¶ Even though investment declined,
the amount of renewable energy that can be generated grew 16%. The report credited falling prices for things like solar panels -- which have
dropped 75% over the last three years -- with the increase in output.¶ At $126 billion, solar attracted the most investment cash among all the
clean energy technologies surveyed by the report, even though it generated only about a third as much power as wind.¶ The size of that
investment highlights investors' enthusiasm for the technology. While falling solar panel prices have been painful for panel makers, they've
been a boon to companies and investors developing solar power projects.
Impact—Winning clean tech race k2 Econ
Falling behind in the green energy race would devastate the US economy
Eisen 11 (Joel, professor at Richmond University School of Law, “The New Energy Geopolitics?: China,
Renewable Energy, and the "Greentech Race", University of Richmond Law Faculty Publications 2011,
http://scholarship.richmond.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1632&context=law-faculty-publications, Accessed
7/5/14, MB)
The "green energy race" means different things to different people,¶ but to simplify matters a bit, there are two related but different
arguments¶ being made. The first is that the United States is missing out on the economic¶ opportunity available in
moving toward a "green economy." In this¶ view, China is creating more green economic activity and jobs than we
are.¶ Some fear that China will dominate the global market for greentech, exporting¶ it to us and diminishing
American companies' ability to compete¶ with Chinese firms. This, of course, is the bedrock principle of the USTR¶ investigation,
and must be considered in the context of the complex relationship¶ between the two nations. The United States has departed from its¶
"courtship" of China, criticizing it for its currency stance and other economic¶ policies,9 and the greentech investigation represents
only one area in¶ which the United States and China have recently tussled with each other.
Failing to lead the clean tech race puts the US economy at risk of a collapse—
manufacturing, jobs and market control are key to growth
Ogden et al. 14 (Pete, Ogden is a Senior Fellow and the Director of International Energy and Climate Policy at
the Center for American Progress. Mari Hernandez is a Research Associate at the Center. Ben Bovarnick is a Special
Assistant at the Center, “Galvanizing Clean Energy Investment in the United States”, Center for American Progress
4/3/14, http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/green/report/2014/04/03/87092/galvanizing-clean-energyinvestment-in-the-united-states/, Accessed 7/7/14, MB)
However, America will need to do more to CONTINUE to compete successfully in the burgeoning clean energy
economy. After leading the global clean energy investment race until 2008, the United States has fallen behind China in four of the
past five years.¶ The
countries that lead in clean energy investment can increase clean energy
manufacturing capacity; secure greater global market share for their clean energy products; create
jobs at home; and help build strong economies fueled by energy and technologies that hedge against
energy price volatility and future carbon pricing. To maintain its competitiveness, the United States will need
to take bold new steps that build on what has been accomplished over the past five years and fill the voids left by the winding
down of many of the important clean energy and energy-efficiency programs and investments made through the American
Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, or ARRA.¶ Filling those voids, however, will be challenging. The ARRA enabled investors to finance
clean energy projects during a time of capital scarcity and to keep our clean energy sector competitive during a global recession. It did this by
providing more than $90 billion in clean energy investments through loans and loan guarantees to capital-intensive projects, tax credits to
lower PROJECT COSTS for companies, upfront grants to help businesses that are unable to benefit from tax credits get started, and more.
Thanks to these and other federal- and state-level investments and policies over the past five years, the U.S. clean energy sector has emerged
as a powerful economic force that can drive innovation, create jobs, and expand manufacturing.¶ The United States is still a global
leader in CLEAN ENERGY investment, but over the past five years, other countries have started to increase their market
share, with China overtaking the lead in annual clean energy investment in four out of the past five years. Congress, meanwhile, is not
doing all that it should to help keep America competitive. Faced with this challenge, the Obama administration should
seek to deploy all of the tools as its disposal to help the United States to capture the full benefits of the emerging
clean energy economy for decades to come.
Impact—Clean tech race k2 Heg
US Green Leadership ensures US Primacy and causes spillover
Klarevas 9 (Louis, Professor in the Center for Global Affairs at New York University, Huffington Post, "Securing
American Primacy While Tackling Climate Change: Toward a National Strategy of Greengemony" ,
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/louis-klarevas/securing-american-primacy_b_393223.html , Accessed 7/8/14,
MB)
As national leaders from around the world are gathering in Copenhagen, Denmark, to attend the United Nations Climate Change Conference,
the time is ripe to re-assess America's current energy policies - but within the larger framework of how a new
approach on the environment will stave off global warming and shore up American primacy. ¶ By not addressing
climate change more aggressively and creatively, the United States is squandering an opportunity to secure its
global primacy for the next few generations to come. To do this, though, the U.S. must rely on innovation to help the world
escape the coming environmental meltdown. Developing the key technologies that will save the planet from global
warming will allow the U.S. to outmaneuver potential great power rivals seeking to replace it as the international
system's hegemon. But the greening of American strategy must occur soon.¶ The U.S., however, seems to be stuck in time, unable to move
beyond oil-centric geo-politics in any meaningful way.¶ Often, the gridlock is portrayed as a partisan difference, with Republicans resisting
action and Democrats pleading for action.¶ This, though, is an unfair characterization as there are numerous proactive Republicans and quite a
few reticent Democrats.¶ The real divide is instead one between realists and liberals.¶ Students of realpolitik, which still heavily guides
American foreign policy, largely discount environmental issues as they are not seen as advancing national interests in a way that generates
relative power advantages vis-à-vis the other major powers in the system: Russia, China, Japan, India, and the European Union.¶ Liberals, on the
other hand, have recognized that global warming might very well become the greatest challenge ever faced by mankind. As such, their thinking
often eschews narrowly defined national interests for the greater global good. This, though, ruffles elected officials whose sworn obligation is,
above all, to protect and promote American national interests.¶ What both sides need to understand is that by becoming a lean, mean, green
fighting machine, the U.S. can actually bring together liberals and realists to advance a collective interest which benefits every nation, while at
the same time, securing America's global primacy well into the future.¶ To do so, the U.S. must re-invent itself as not just your
traditional hegemon, but as history's first ever green hegemon.¶ Hegemons are countries that dominate the international system bailing out other countries in times of global crisis, establishing and maintaining the most important international institutions, and covering the
costs that result from free-riding and cheating global obligations. Since 1945, that role has been the purview of the United States.¶ Immediately
after World War II, Europe and Asia laid in ruin, the global economy required resuscitation, the countries of the free world needed security
guarantees, and the entire system longed for a multilateral forum where global concerns could be addressed. The U.S., emerging the least
scathed by the systemic crisis of fascism's rise, stepped up to the challenge and established the postwar (and current) liberal order.¶ But don't
let the world "liberal" fool you. While many nations benefited from America's new-found hegemony, the U.S. was driven largely by "realist"
selfish national interests. The liberal order first and foremost benefited the U.S.¶ With the U.S. becoming bogged down in places like
Afghanistan and Iraq, running a record national debt, and failing to shore up the dollar, the future of American hegemony now seems to be
facing a serious contest: potential rivals - acting like sharks smelling blood in the water - wish to challenge the U.S. on a variety of fronts. This
has led numerous commentators to forecast the U.S.'s imminent fall from grace.¶ Not all hope is lost however.¶ With the impending systemic
crisis of global warming on the horizon, the U.S. again finds itself in a position to address a transnational problem in a way that will benefit both
the international community collectively and the U.S. selfishly.¶ The current problem is two-fold. First, the competition for oil is fueling
animosities between the major powers. The geopolitics of oil has already emboldened Russia in its 'near abroad' and China in far-off
places like Africa and Latin America. As oil is a limited natural resource, a nasty zero-sum contest could be looming on the horizon
for the U.S. and its major power rivals - a contest which threatens American primacy and global stability.¶ Second,
converting fossil fuels like oil to run national economies is producing irreversible harm in the form of carbon dioxide emissions. So long as the
global economy remains oil-dependent, greenhouse gases will continue to rise. Experts are predicting as much as a 60% increase in carbon
dioxide emissions in the next twenty-five years. That likely means more devastating water shortages, droughts, forest fires, floods, and storms.¶
In other words, if global competition for access to energy resources does not undermine international security, global warming will. And in
either case, oil will be a culprit for the instability.¶ Oil arguably has been the most precious energy resource of the last half-century. But "black
gold" is so 20th century. The key resource for this century will be green gold - clean, environmentally-friendly energy like wind, solar, and
hydrogen power. Climate change leaves no alternative. And the sooner we realize this, the better off we will be.¶ What Washington must do in
order to avoid the traps of petropolitics is to convert the U.S. into the world's first-ever green hegemon.¶ For starters, the federal government
must drastically increase investment in energy and environmental research and development (E&E R&D). This will require a serious sacrifice,
committing upwards of $40 billion annually to E&E R&D - a far cry from the few billion dollars currently being spent.¶ By promoting a new
national project, the U.S. could develop new technologies that will assure it does not drown in a pool of oil. Some
solutions are already well known, such as raising fuel standards for automobiles; improving public transportation networks; and expanding
nuclear and wind power sources. Others, however, have not progressed much beyond the drawing board: batteries that can store massive
amounts of solar (and possibly even wind) power; efficient and cost-effective photovoltaic cells, crop-fuels, and hydrogen-based fuels; and even
fusion.¶ Such innovations will not only provide alternatives to oil, they will also give the U.S. an edge in the global competition
for hegemony. If the U.S. is able to produce technologies that allow modern, globalized societies to escape the oil
trap, those nations will eventually have no choice but to adopt such technologies. And this will give the U.S. a
tremendous economic boom, while simultaneously providing it with means of leverage that can be employed to keep potential foes in
check.¶ The bottom-line is that the U.S. needs to become green energy dominant as opposed to black energy independent - and the best
approach for achieving this is to promote a national strategy of greengemony.
Losing the global energy race would collapse US heg—dominance in the energy
market is key to exerting influence in global institutions
Herberg 11 (Mikkal, Research Director of Energy Security PROGRAM @ The National Bureau of Asian Research,
“China’s Energy Rise and the Future of U.S.-China Energy Relations”, New America Foundation 6/21/11,
http://newamerica.net/publications/policy/china_s_energy_rise_and_the_future_of_us_china_energy_relations,
accessed 7/6/14, MB)
China’s “energy rise” poses similar dilemmas for the U.S. and the established Western-dominated energy institutions and
market structures as its broader economic rise poses for global strategic and economic relations. In energy terms, will
China emerge as a status quo or as a “revisionist” power? And what does this mean for long-term U.S. energy security and
global energy interests? The U.S. has been the superpower of global energy just as it has been in strategic and
economic affairs. The U.S. consumes nearly one-quarter of daily world oil production, is the third largest oil producer, the largest electricity
and total vehicle market. The U.S. is home to many of the largest, most powerful and sophisticated global oil companies. The U.S. has been the
dominant strategic power in the key petroleum exporting regions, most importantly, the Persian Gulf and the U.S. Navy and military dominate
the sea lanes and airspace that are vital to global oil production and transportation. The current structure of global energy
institutions and energy security arrangements have been established under the U.S.-led post-war liberal order and
energy “Pax Americana”.¶ China’s growing global energy clout will evolve in the context of these existing global oil and energy market
structures, institutions of multilateral energy cooperation, and U.S. strategic power created under U.S. leadership over the past 50 years. So the
question is will China use its growing market power and diplomatic influence to support the existing open and flexible
global oil and energy market arrangements, support western efforts to stabilize key exporting regions, and join in multilateral energy
governance institutions like the IEA established under U.S. leadership? Or will it CONTINUE along its “go-it-alone” path of
seeking privileged access to energy supplies through close collaboration with its national oil companies (NOCs), bilateral rather than multilateral
energy and financial diplomacy, and a politicized approach to securing oil supplies? In short, will Beijing’s energy path be through markets or
mercantilism?¶ As the dominant oil market driving force, rule-maker, institution-builder, strategic power, and technology leader in global
energy, the U.S. has major stakes along all these dimensions of rising Chinese energy power and influence. As noted energy expert John
Mitchell has written, “For every issue on the energy geopolitical agenda, there is at least one telephone line to Washington.” However,
China’s growing role in global energy affairs, particularly oil markets and governance, means that the U.S. will no
longer be the unipolar energy power.¶ ¶ At the same time, the power of the U.S. to shape global energy affairs is
eroding. Other powers besides China, including Russia, Saudi Arabia, India, Brazil, and Kazakhstan are moving towards a more statist
and bilateral approach to energy investment and are creating new alliances among themselves and with China to exploit energy
resources and to trade energy on much more “dirigiste”, political terms. National oil companies (NOCs) from large producer countries and NOCs
among the oil-consuming Asian powers, especially China, increasingly are working together and bypassing the large, technologically
sophisticated U.S.-based international oil companies (IOCs) that have dominated global OIL AND GAS INVESTMENT and technology for the past
50 years. This trend is accelerating as the source of global petroleum demand shifts to Asia and China and as their supplies come from an
increasingly concentrated group of Persian Gulf oil and gas producers.3 While the IEA remains the key institution in framing multilateral
cooperation among the rich OECD countries to manage potential global oil supply disruptions, the relevance of the IEA is being weakened by
the absence of rising oil importers such as China and India.¶ ¶ Moreover, the domestic underpinnings of support for the global
strategic role for the U.S. in the Middle East and key energy exporting regions are weakening under the pressure of
the domestic budget and debt crisis and political fatigue from two major wars. The “lead from behind” U.S. approach to the Libya crisis
demonstrates quite clearly that the U.S. no longer has the domestic political support or the seemingly unlimited military resources for new
adventures in the Middle East energy exporting region. Also, the recent political upheaval among a number of key Middle East oil producers
suggests that the entire historic underpinnings of America’s regional alliances, friendly governments, and political arrangements largely
established under U.S. strategic and economic power in the region is also eroding. Even the pivotal U.S.-Saudi strategic alliance is looking deeply
strained as the U.S. neglects this key LONG TERM RELATIONSHIP and as the Saudis look east to China and Asia for their future market growth.
On climate change, the
inability of the U.S. and the Obama administration to forge a domestic consensus on
carbon and climate policy has dramatically weakened the ability of the U.S. to shape future global
climate negotiations. Finally, severe budget constraints and domestic political gridlock are hampering the ability of the
U.S. to promote new clean and RENEWABLE ENERGY technologies even as China moves forward to capture much
of that technological high ground.
Food
1AC Food
OTEC alleviates food insecurity---several internal links
Binger 04(Dr. Al Binger is a Visiting Professor, Saga University Institute of Ocean Energy, Saga, Japan. He is
Director of the University of the West Indies Centre for Environment and Development, Kingston, Jamaica.
“Potential and Future Prospects for Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) In Small Islands Developing States
(SIDS)” pg. 7-8 2004 http://www.sidsnet.org/docshare/energy/20040428105917_OTEC_UN.pdf accessed 7/8/14
AZ)
In the majority of SIDS, particularly the smaller islands, the limited availability of land with ¶ fertile soil and limited
water availability severely constrains food production. All SIDS depend on imports ¶ of food to meet both domestic and tourism
needs. Food security for SIDS is therefore an issue of having ¶ the foreign exchange availability to import the grains,
milk and protein sources that they are either unable ¶ to produce or cannot produce in adequate quantities for their demand. With growing
population and ¶ increasing tourism, the majority of SIDS will have no option but to increase importation of essential ¶ foods.¶ OTEC has the
potential to contribute to food security in SIDS in many ways. First, direct ¶ contribution is the utilization of large
volumes of nutrient rich cold water, which would be discharged ¶ from an operating facility at about 10 degrees Celsius,
for Mari-culture production. This application is¶ demonstrated in Hawaii, US. Feasibility studies conducted by the University
of the West Indies Centre for ¶ Environment and Development (UWICED), based on the Hawaiian experience, showed
that the gross ¶ return per unit of land used for Mari-culture8¶ would be more than ten times greater than which
accrued from growing bananas for export, and more than thirty times sugar earning. The employment generated ¶
was 300% greater than for bananas and more than 600% for sugar. Therefore, the first potential ¶ contribution by
OTEC to food security would be a combination of enhanced domestic protein production ¶ and foreign exchange
earnings.¶ The second potential contribution would be through increased availability of fresh water as a coproduct
from the OTEC plant, which would be available to support hydroponics farming. The third ¶ potential contribution
would be using some of the cold seawater discharge to regulate greenhouse ¶ temperature and thereby maximize
yield. The fourth potential would be based on the use of the water ¶ discharged from the plant to regulate the
temperature of reefs to maximize photosynthetic activity and ¶ increase natural marine production in the coastal
areas and beyond. The final potential contribution would ¶ come from the significant reduction in the vulnerability
of SIDS to the escalating and volatile prices for ¶ petroleum, thereby significantly increasing the availability of
foreign exchange available to import food ¶ supplies.
It’s specifically key to aquaculture---fish stocks will collapse by 2050 and OTEC allows
aquaculture to sustainably fill in
Websdale 14(Emma Websdale is a writer for Empower the Ocean, which is a platform founded by Ocean
Thermal Energy Corporation to help people around the world learn about and support ocean thermal energy
conversion as a global game changing technology whose time has now come. “The Promise of OTEC Aquaculture”
2/24/14 http://empowertheocean.com/otec-aquaculture/ accessed 7/8/14 AZ)
The report, entitled ‘Fish to 2030: Prospects for Fisheries and Aquaculture’, estimates that by 2030, 62% of all
consumed seafood will need to be farmed, including fish for foods and fishmeal, in order to meet demand. Demand is greatest
in certain regions, particularly Asia, where approximately 70% of fish will be consumed. The report states that aquaculture will help
satisfy the world’s growing appetite for fish as human populations continue to grow .¶ Investing in aquaculture is not a new
notion. In 2007, the United Nations cautioned that without better management of fish production, the rising demand
for seafood would lead to a collapse of today’s commercial fish stocks by 2050 . Furthermore, the UNEP Global Environment
Outlook Year Book 2007 noted that the impact of climate change on the world’s oceans (by increasing ocean acidity and
bleaching coral reefs) would further aggravate the fishing dilemma. These projections have since been strongly
supported by scientists and organizations. A report released in October 2013 estimated that human-induced
greenhouse gases are not only increasing the acidity of our water but are also depleting water oxygen levels -two
biochemical changes that are likely to reduce ocean productivity significantly . Fortunately, some organizations and
companies are developing sustainable methods and technologies for aquaculture. One recent advance that deserves
attention is the water drawn by the pipes of Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) plants. OTEC is a base-load renewable energy
production process particularly suited for tropical zones. By using the ocean’s abundant temperature differential
between warm surface water and cold deep water, OTEC technology generates both clean energy and fresh drinking
water.¶ Due to the technology’s looped system, under certain conditions the water can be re-used for secondary applications including
desalination to create fresh drinking water. One particularly attractive by-product of OTEC plants is nutrient-rich and virtually
pathogen-free water from the deep ocean. This water provides an optimal environment for various forms of
aquaculture cultivation of both plants and animals. Through open-ocean fish farming (where adequate flushing ensures
dilution of waste products), aquaculture can produce sustainable food supplies. Thus, OTEC provides an attractive
application to the aquaculture industry, especially in the face of current declines in commercial fishing stocks .¶ The
cold, deep seawater, available as a result of producing renewable energy through OTEC technology has numerous advantages for
aquaculture systems:¶ -Rich in dissolved nitrogen, carbon and phosphorus, OTEC’s deep-ocean water contains
chemicals that are essential for fish and plant growth. ¶ -The consistent low temperature of OTEC water provides
opportunities to culture valuable cold-water organisms both in native environments and in the tropics.¶ -The virtually
pathogen-free water pumped by OTEC allows disease-free cultivation of sensitive organisms.¶ Aquaculture via deep
seawater is not just a theory or hopeful expectation. The Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii Authority (NELHA) currently utilizes
cold deep seawater for both mature and developing commercial aquaculture applications. NELHA already farms
numerous seafood products including shrimp, lobster, oysters, abalone, tilapia, kampachi, flounder and salmon.
Additionally, aquaculture at NELHA includes the growing of microalgae for pharmaceuticals or biofuels, thus
providing an input for humanitarian and environmentally friendly industries.
That’s key to global food security---aquaculture will be a crucial food source
Jones 12(Michael B. Jones is President of The Maritime Alliance, whose mission is “Promoting Blue Tech & Blue
Jobs. She writes for the Maritime Museum of San Diego, “Promoting the Blue Economy: The Role of Maritime
Technology Clusters” pg.147 2012 http://themaritimealliance.org/pdf/BlueEconomy&Clusters_MBJ.pdf accessed
7/8/14 AZ)
Premise: Aquaculture is important to feed the growing ¶ world population and growing middle class.21¶ Currently, half
of the world’s seafood comes from ¶ fisheries (60 million metric tons) and half from ¶ aquaculture (60 million metric tons). ¶
70% of the aquaculture seafood comes from Asia using ¶ methods that may not meet U.S. standards. ¶ U.S. is the
world’s third largest consumer of seafood, ¶ but imports more than 80% of its supply. ¶ U.S. imported $14.6 billion of fish &
shellfish in 2010 ¶ (up $1.6 billion from 2009. The first nine months of ¶ 2011 were up $1.6 billion from the first nine months ¶ of 2010). Exports
in 2010 were $4.6 billion (up $486 ¶ million from 2009).22¶ Within the next 20 years, the growing world population ¶ is expected
to require an additional 60 million metric ¶ tons, which can only be provided by aquaculture. Within 25 years, the
U.S. is ¶ expected to need 1.5 million ¶ more metric tons of seafood ¶ annually to meet demand. ¶ (Will developing
countries ¶ export when they need ¶ protein for their own growing ¶ middle classes?)¶ Southern California (Pt. ¶
Conception to Mexico) has ¶ over 250 miles of coastline ¶ (excluding bays and islands), ¶ and over 19,000 square miles of ¶ openocean water; commercial ¶ fisherpersons in 2010 landed ¶ over 150,000 metric tons of all ¶ marine species (finfish, shellfish, ¶ squid, etc.) with
an ex-vessel ¶ value of $97 million. ¶ Current aquaculture revenue ¶ in California (trout, abalone, ¶ sturgeon, etc.) is approximately ¶ $100 million
annually
Food shortages cause nuclear world war 3
FDI 12, Future Directions International, a Research institute providing strategic analysis of Australia’s global
interests; citing Lindsay Falvery, PhD in Agricultural Science and former Professor at the University of Melbourne’s
Institute of Land and Environment, “Food and Water Insecurity: International Conflict Triggers & Potential Conflict
Points,” http://www.futuredirections.org.au/workshop-papers/537-international-conflict-triggers-and-potentialconflict-points-resulting-from-food-and-water-insecurity.html
There is a growing appreciation that the conflicts in the next century will most likely be fought over a lack of
resources.¶ Yet, in a sense, this is not new. Researchers point to the French and Russian revolutions as conflicts induced by
a lack of food. More recently, Germany’s World War Two efforts are said to have been inspired, at least in part, by its
perceived need to gain access to more food. Yet the general sense among those that attended FDI’s recent workshops, was that the scale of
the problem in the future could be significantly greater as a result of population pressures, changing weather, urbanisation, migration,
loss of arable land and other farm inputs, and increased affluence in the developing world. ¶ In his book, Small Farmers Secure Food, Lindsay Falvey , a
participant in FDI’s March 2012 workshop on the issue of food and conflict, clearly expresses the problem and why countries across the globe are starting
to take note. .¶ He writes (p.36), “…if people are hungry, especially in cities, the state is not stable – riots, violence, breakdown of law and
order and migration result.”¶ “Hunger feeds anarchy.”¶ This view is also shared by Julian Cribb, who in his book, The Coming Famine, writes that if
“large regions of the world run short of food, land or water in the decades that lie ahead, then wholesale, bloody wars are
liable to follow.” ¶ He continues: “An increasingly credible scenario for World War 3 is not so much a confrontation of super powers
and their allies, as a festering, self-perpetuating chain of resource conflicts.” He also says: “The wars of the 21st Century are less likely to
be global conflicts with sharply defined sides and huge armies, than a scrappy mass of failed states, rebellions, civil strife, insurgencies, terrorism and genocides,
sparked by bloody competition over dwindling resources.Ӧ As another workshop participant put it, people do not go to war to kill; they go to war over resources,
either to protect or to gain the resources for themselves. ¶ Another observed that hunger results in passivity not conflict. Conflict is over resources, not because
study by the International Peace Research Institute indicates that where food security is an
issue, it is more likely to result in some form of conflict. Darfur, Rwanda, Eritrea and the Balkans experienced
such wars. Governments, especially in developed countries, are increasingly aware of this phenomenon. ¶ The UK Ministry of Defence, the CIA,
the US Center for Strategic and International Studies and the Oslo Peace Research Institute, all identify famine as a potential
trigger for conflicts and possibly even nuclear war.
people are going hungry.¶ A
Exts Ag UQ
Agriculture shocks are coming now
Ahmed 13 (Nafeez Ahmed is executive director of the Institute for Policy Research & Development, He has
taught at the Department of International Relations, University of Sussex, and has lectured at Brunel University’s
Politics & History Unit, for courses in international relations theory, contemporary history, empire and
globalization. He writes “Dramatic decline in industrial agriculture could herald 'peak food'” for The Guardian on
12/19/13 http://www.theguardian.com/environment/earth-insight/2013/dec/19/industrial-agriculture-limitspeak-food accessed 7/6/14 AZ)
Industrial agriculture could be hitting fundamental limits in its capacity to produce sufficient crops to feed an
expanding global population according to new research published in Nature Communications. ¶ The study by scientists at
the University of Nebraska-Lincoln argues that there have been abrupt declines or plateaus in the rate of production of major crops which
undermine optimistic projections of constantly increasing crop yields. As much as "31% of total global rice, wheat and maize
production" has experienced "yield plateaus or abrupt decreases in yield gain, including rice in eastern Asia and
wheat in northwest Europe."¶The declines and plateaus in production have become prevalent despite increasing
investment in agriculture, which could mean that maximum potential yields under the industrial model of agribusiness have already
occurred. Crop yields in "major cereal-producing regions have not increased for long periods of time following an earlier period of steady linear
increase."¶The paper makes for ominous reading. Production levels have already flattened out with "no case of a return to the
previous rising yield trend" for key regions amounting to "33% of global rice and 27% of global wheat production."
The US researchers concluded that these yield plateaus could be explained by the inference that "average farm yields approach a biophysical
yield ceiling for the crop in question, which is determined by its yield potential in the regions where the crop is produced." They wrote:¶ "... we
found widespread deceleration in the relative rate of increase of average yields of the major cereal crops during the
1990–2010 period in countries with greatest production of these crops, and strong evidence of yield plateaus or an
abrupt drop in rate of yield gain in 44% of the cases, which, together, account for 31% of total global rice, wheat and
maize production."¶ Past trends over the last five decades of perpetually increasing crop yields were "driven by rapid adoption of green
revolution technologies that were largely one-time innovations" which cannot be repeated. These include major industrial innovations such as
"the development of semi-dwarf wheat and rice varieties, first widespread use of commercial fertilizers and pesticides, and large investments to
expand irrigation infrastructure."¶ Although agricultural investment in China increased threefold from 1981 to 2000, rates of increase for wheat
yields have remained constant, decreased by 64% for maize and are negligible in rice. Similarly, the rate of maize yield has remained largely flat
despite a 58% investment increased over the same period. The study warns:¶ "A concern is that despite the increase in investment in
agricultural R&D and education during this period, the relative rate of yield gain for the major food crops has
decreased over time together with evidence of upper yield plateaus in some of the most productive domains ."¶ The
study criticises most other yield projection models which predict compound or exponential production increases over coming years and decades,
even though these "do not occur in the real world." It notes that "such growth rates are not feasible over the long term because average farm
yields eventually approach a yield potential ceiling determined by biophysical limits on crop growth rates and yield."¶ Factors contributing
to the declines or plateaus in food production rates include land and soil degradation, climate change and cyclical
weather patterns, use of fertilisers and pesticides, and inadequate or inappropriate investment.¶ The new research raises
critical questions about the capacity of traditional industrial agricultural methods to sustain global food production for a growing world
population. Food production will need to increase by about 60% by 2050 to meet demand.¶ A report out this month from the Dutch
bank Rabobank recommends cutting food waste by 10%, as over 1 billion tonnes - half of which is related to
agriculture - ends up being wasted. More efficient use of water is necessary, the report says, such as micro-irrigation, to
address a potential water supply deficit of 40% by 2030. Currently, agriculture accounts for 70% of global water demand. The
report also calls for a reduction in dependence on fertilisers using 'input optimisation' methods designed to reduce
the amount of energy and water required. As 53% of fertiliser nutrients remain in the ground post-harvest, fertilisers contribute to soil
degradation over time due to groundwater contamination, leaching, erosion and global warming.
Exts OTEC -> Aquaculture
OTEC can be used to cultivate key aquaculture species
Masutani and Takahashi 94 (S. M. Masutani has a PhD from Stanford in Mechanical Engineering and P. K.
Takahashi has a PhD in chemical engineering from Louisiana State University, University of Hawaii at Manoa, 1994
“Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion”
http://curry.eas.gatech.edu/Courses/6140/ency/Chapter2/Ency_Oceans/OTEC.pdf accessed 7/1/14 AZ)
The cold deep ocean waters are rich in nutrients and¶ low in pathogens, and therefore provide chemical engineering
from Louisiana State Universities distributions of power, der to bring de an excellent¶ medium for the cultivation of
marine organisms.¶ The 322-acre NELHA facility has been the base for¶ successful mariculture research and
development¶ enterprises. The site has an array of cold water¶ pipes, originally installed for the early OTEC research, but
since used for mariculture. The cold¶ water is applied to cultivate Sounder, opihi (limpet;¶ a shellfish delicacy),
oysters, lobsters, sea urchins,¶ abalone, kelp, nori (a popular edible seaweed used¶ in sushi), and macro- and
microalgae. Although¶ any of these ongoing endeavors are profitable, ¶ high-value products such as
biopharmaceuticals, biopigments, and pearls will need to be advanced to ¶ realize the full potential of the deep
water.¶ The cold sea water may have applications for¶ open-ocean mariculture. Artificial upwelling of deep¶ water has been
suggested as a method of creating¶ new fisheries and marine biomass plantations.¶ Should development proceed, openocean cages can¶ be eliminated and natural feeding would replace¶ expensive feed, with temperature and nutrient¶
differentials being used to keep the fish stock in¶ the kept environment.
OTEC aquaculture can provide key jobs to small islands
Websdale 14(Emma Websdale is a writer for Empower the Ocean, which is a platform founded by Ocean
Thermal Energy Corporation to help people around the world learn about and support ocean thermal energy
conversion as a global game changing technology whose time has now come. “The Promise of OTEC Aquaculture”
2/24/14 http://empowertheocean.com/otec-aquaculture/ accessed 7/8/14 AZ)
Aquaculture is both sustainable and achievable. With wild fish stocks disappearing at an all-time rate, aquaculture
provides a solution for replenishing global fish populations and alleviating pressure on intensively over-fished wild
stocks.¶ Moreover, OTEC aquaculture can provide self-sustaining food resources for tropical island communities,
helping them to compete with foreign fishing industries.¶ OTEC aquaculture can also strengthen local economies of
small island developing states (SIDS), by creating job opportunities for local island residents. As the global population
edges towards nine billion by 2050, the opportunity for jobs in the aquaculture industry will continue t o grow. This
economic impact doesn’t stop with island communities. Aquaculture can also extend to ‘upstream’ industries including
agriculture, hatcheries, feed manufacturers, equipment manufacturers, and veterinary services. ‘Downstream’
industries such as processors, wholesalers, retailers, transportation, and food services are also supported by the
aquaculture industry.
Exts OTEC -> Food
OTEC can carry cold water to land to grow agriculture
Masutani and Takahashi 94(S. M. Masutani has a PhD from Stanford in Mechanical Engineering and P. K.
Takahashi has a PhD in chemical engineering from Louisiana State University, University of Hawaii at Manoa, 1994
“Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion”
http://curry.eas.gatech.edu/Courses/6140/ency/Chapter2/Ency_Oceans/OTEC.pdf accessed 7/1/14 AZ)
An idea initially proposed by University of Hawaii¶ researchers involves the use of cold sea water for¶ agriculture. This
involves burying an array of cold¶ water pipes in the ground near to the surface to ¶ create cool weather growing
conditions not found in¶ tropical environments. In addition to cooling the¶ soil, the system also drip irrigates the crop
via condensation of moisture in the air on the cold water¶ pipes. Demonstrations have determined that strawberries
and other spring crops and Sowers can be¶ grown throughout the year in the tropics using this¶ method.
OTEC can pump cold water to produce marine algae and animals
Fujita 03(Rodney Fujita received his Ph.D. in marine ecology from the Boston University Marine Program, “Healing The
Ocean: Solutions for Saving Our Seas” copyright 2003
http://books.google.com/books?id=d7Bj3xS6i9gC&pg=PA68&lpg=PA68&dq=%22OTEC%22+%22private+companies%22&source
=bl&ots=xjn2vsXAOZ&sig=x6ONVHfSi4yFzBfYHlivzCf_f0&hl=en&sa=X&ei=tWG4U9_uD8uhqAao8YLoDQ&ved=0CBwQ6AEwADgU#v=snippet&q=water%20O
TEC&f=false accessed 7/5/14 AZ)
The real beauty of the OTEC concept is that it can provide many ancillary benefits in addition to power generation.
Burning fossil fuels, by contrast, produces only energy and pollution. In an OTEC plant, the cold water pumped up to condense
the working fluid or warm seawater can be used to air-condition nearby offices or homes. Because air conditioning uses a
large amount of energy, using cold seawater can be quite efficient. For example, the U.S Navy is considering the construction of an eight
megawatt OTEC plant to replace a 15 megawatt gas-powered plant at its base on the British island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean. The
smaller capacity OTEC plant is expected to suffice, because cold seawater from the OTEC plan can provide air conditioning, which would
otherwise consume about five megawatts of power. Two buildings at the National Energy Laboratory of Hawai’i (NELHA), where pilot OTEC
plants produced net power, are cooled by OTEC seawater. The cold seawater pumped up from the depths by OTEC is also rich
in nutrients and free of parasites, making it ideal for use in the cultivation of marine algae and animals. Private
companies have already profited by growing lobsters, fish, and high protein algae at NELHA. In addition, warm
seawater that is flash-vaporized in open-cycle OTEC plants can be re-condensed, leaving behind the salt and
providing a source of fresh water.
Exts Food Impact
Extinction
Richard Lugar 2k, Chairman of the Senator Foreign Relations Committee and Member/Former Chair of the
Senate Agriculture Committee “calls for a new green revolution to combat global warming and reduce world
instability,” http://www.unep.org/OurPlanet/imgversn/143/lugar.html
In a world confronted by global terrorism, turmoil in the Middle East, burgeoning nuclear threats and other crises, it is easy to lose sight of the long-range
challenges. But we do so at our peril. One of the most daunting of them is meeting the world’s need for food and energy in this century. At stake is not only
preventing starvation and saving the environment, but also world peace and security. History tells us that states may go
to war over access to
resources, and that poverty and famine have often bred fanaticism and terrorism. Working to feed the world will
minimize factors that contribute to global instability and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
With the world population expected to grow from 6 billion people today to 9 billion by mid-century, the demand for affordable food
will increase well beyond current international production levels. People in rapidly developing nations will have the means greatly to
improve their standard of living and caloric intake. Inevitably, that means eating more meat. This will raise demand for feed grain at the same time that the growing
world population will need vastly more basic food to eat. Complicating a solution to this problem is a dynamic that must be better understood in the West:
developing countries often use limited arable land to expand cities to house their growing populations. As good land
disappears, people destroy timber resources and even rainforests as they try to create more arable land to feed themselves.
The long-term environmental consequences could be disastrous for the entire globe. ¶ Productivity revolution ¶ To meet
the expected demand for food over the next 50 years, we in the United States will have to grow roughly three times more
food on the land we have. That’s a tall order. My farm in Marion County, Indiana, for example, yields on average 8.3 to 8.6 tonnes of corn per hectare – typical
for a farm in central Indiana. To triple our production by 2050, we will have to produce an annual average of 25 tonnes per hectare. Can we possibly boost output
that much? Well, it’s been done before. Advances in the use of fertilizer and water, improved machinery and better tilling techniques combined to generate a
threefold increase in yields since 1935 – on our farm back then, my dad produced 2.8 to 3 tonnes per hectare. Much US agriculture has seen similar increases. But of
course there is no guarantee that we can achieve those results again. Given the urgency of expanding food production to meet world demand, we must invest much
more in scientific research and target that money toward projects that promise to have significant national and global impact. For the United States, that will mean
a major shift in the way we conduct and fund agricultural science. Fundamental research will generate the innovations that will be necessary to feed the world. The
United States can take a leading position in a productivity revolution. And our success at increasing food production may play a
decisive humanitarian role in the survival of billions of people and the health of our planet.
Ocean Tech
1AC Ocean Tech
The US is falling behind in marine technology---causes dependence and leads other
countries to
US Commission on Ocean Policy 4, PRELIMINARY REPORT CHAPTER 27: ENHANCING OCEAN
INFRASTRUCTURE AND TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT, Apr 20 2004,
http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/oceancommission/documents/prelimreport/chapter27.pdf
Furthermore, a decline in U.S. leadership in marine technology development will result in increasing reliance on
foreign capabilities. Japan, the European Community, India, and China are all making great strides in technology
development and have the potential to out compete the United States in the near future. Changes in the policies
and priorities of foreign nations, and potential reluctance to freely share technology and environmental
information with the United States, may put the nation’s ocean research and observation activities at risk. ¶ In 2001, the U.S.
Commission on National Security/21st Century reported that federal investment in non-defense technology development has remained flat since 1989 and that
the United States is losing its technological edge in many scientific fields.3
OTEC solves---re-establishes the US lead
United States Department of Commerce 81 (Prepared by the Office of Ocean Minerals and Energy for
the Department of Commerce. “Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion Report to Congress: Fiscal Year 1981”
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CZIC-tk1056-u55a-1981/html/CZIC-tk1056-u55a-1981.htm accessed 7/7/14 AZ)
Development of a commercial OTEC industry by the U.S. private sector would provide the United States with : (a)
increased energy self-sufficiency, (b) major new international trade opportunities, (c) reduced annual balance of
payments deficits, (d) increased investment in manufacturing, construction, and energy-intensive industries, (e)
increased regional employment, and (f) continued leadership in new ocean technologies. ¶ The potential power
generation market in which U.S.-built OTEC plants could compete has been estimated for approximately seventy of
the ninety countries and territories with access to the OTEC resource. The added electric power generation needs of these
countries, many of which are lesser developed countries now dependent on imported oil, is large enough to accommodate
on the order of 100 1OMW OTEC plants, 500 40MW plants, 1100 lOOMW plants, and 1100 40OMW plants (a total of more than 570 thousand
MW) between the years 1990 and 2010. Even if U.S. companies are able to supply only ten percent of this potential market , a
conservative projection, U.S. exports of OTEC plants would increase U.S. export trade by about $171 billion in 1980 dollars. This
would result in major benefits to U.S. employment, industrial activity, and balance of payments . ¶ Meeting a goal of 10,000
megawatts of U.S. OTEC capacity in place by 1999 would free Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and other U.S. islands from dependence on imported oil for their baseload
electricity generation, and would reduce U.S. needs for imported oil by approximately 360,000 barrels a day. The cumulative
displacement of imported oil by 1999 would amount to a savings of $18 billion. The combination of savings from imported oil and payments for U.S. OTEC plants
sold to other countries could result in an improvement in U.S. balance of payments by $5 billion to $7 billion a year during the 1990s.¶ Because
OTEC plants
use components and skills from a wide variety of industries, industrial investment and activity would be increased
in diverse areas of the U.S. economy, including shipyards, heavy construction, and the manufacturing of concrete,
aluminum, turbines, pumps, heat exchangers, and offshore services. It has been estimated that domestic use of OTEC (without
counting the additional effects of international trade) by 1997 will increase annual employment by 144,000 workers., personal income by $3.9 billion, retail sales by
$1.2 billion, and will generate tax revenues of dn additional $600 million to the federal government and $180 million to states and localities. ¶ Commercial
OTEC operations will involve extensions and new applications of existing technology. If the OTEC industry emerges
strongly in the United States, it will help extend the nation's ability to develop ocean resources in general and will help
assure a continuing U.S. role as a leader in ocean engineering and a supplier of high technologies.
Winning the race to commercialize OTEC is key
Cohen 12 Robert Cohen is an OTEC consultant and an advisor to Lockheed Martin, “OTEC could soon be used?”,
Marine Energy Times, October 2012, http://www.marineenergytimes.com/could-otec-soon-be-used-partii-in-themidst-of-international-competition.html//OF
There is a large early market eagerly awaiting such plants; namely, at island locations around the world where electricity
generated by even the first-of-a-kind commercial ocean thermal plants will likely be cost-competitive with oil-derived
electricity. That early global market to displace oil can probably quickly absorb an initial ocean thermal capacity of
2,000 MWe or more just in Hawaii and Puerto Rico , amounting to a total investment of around $20 B in U.S. plants alone.
The commercial prize awaiting the first industrial nation to lead in achieving the above will be to favorably
position it to launch mammoth new ocean and power industries. In addition, that nation will gain
considerable diplomatic prestige, because it will be able to provide commercial ocean thermal technology to
about 80 countries -- most of which are developing nations – that have good ocean thermal resources adjacent to their shores
and who want to reduce their dependence on oil imports.
Maritime tech leadership is key to protect the environment, secure US interests and
naval power projection---including maritime disputes in East Asia
Ros-Lehtinen 13(Ileana Ros-Lehtinen is a Representative from Florida. She is a co-chair of the National Marine
Sanctuary Caucus. Sea Technology magazine - January 2013 “Sea Technology magazine: Improving Ocean
Technology is Key To Research, Offshore Oil and Defense” 2/1/2013 http://ros-lehtinen.house.gov/sea-technologymagazine-improving-ocean-technology-key-research-offshore-oil-and-defenseaccessed 7/7/14 AZ)
This new year will bring many significant tests, but in all cases, technological advancements are giving us a better
understanding of the world, helping to protect the environment, securing U.S. shores and redefining the projection
of power on the high seas. It will only be through scientific and engineering breakthroughs that we are able to
effectively and safely utilize the oceans—the final frontier.¶ Emerging technology is helping researchers to shine a light
on the ocean, 95 percent of which has yet to be explored. What oceanographers could only dream of a few
decades ago is now not only possible but economical. But there is a disturbing trend: the idea that the technology itself can wholly
replace the individual.¶ Technology has come a long way in increasing understanding of the oceans and enabling more
efficient ways to work underwater, but it is only part of the equation. It is human minds put to the task that give a better
understanding of the world. Much is lost without curiosity, instinct and ambition . The human element remains vital.¶ This
shift is illustrated by NOAA’s abandonment of the Aquarius Reef Base, the world’s only undersea scientific research laboratory. Aquarius
provided aquanauts with the ability to stay underwater for extended periods, allowing them to study the ocean ecosystem. Research
conducted at Aquarius produced more than 300 peer-reviewed papers during 124 missions.¶ Projects like Aquarius also help motivate
students, who must be challenged to take up the cause of innovation, research and progress in becoming the next
generation of scientists and researchers. Students need to look to the oceans with wonder and amazement—and
as future advocates.¶ Closing Aquarius and other marine facilities will take the humanity out of discovery, conservation and research. This
shortsighted decision will cause irreparable damage to ocean exploration now and in the long term.¶ Deepwater Drilling Offshore South
Florida¶ Less than 90 miles from Florida waters, Cuba began to develop deepwater offshore oil drilling last year for the first time. Repsol
(Madrid, Spain), Petronas (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia), and Gazprom Neft (St. Petersburg, Russia) collaborated with Cuba in exploratory drilling,
producing two wells without oil. Venezuela’s Petróleos de Venezuela S.A. (Caracas, Venezuela) is next in line for ultradeep exploratory drilling.¶
This offshore drilling is concerning because an oil spill off Cuban waters could be carried by ocean currents to the Florida coasts, harming
tourism and the livelihood of many Floridians.¶ In 2010, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico provided a wake-up call to
offshore safety policy and technologies. However, the Deepwater Horizon tragedy also pushed the industry to produce a new generation of
technology developed to track oil spills and oil containment. If a similar disaster occurred off Florida’s coast, response teams would be better
prepared.¶ Drug Interdiction¶ In 2011, the U.S. Coast Guard seized more than 150,000 pounds of cocaine and 25,000 pounds of marijuana
through maritime drug interdictions. With the drug cartels deploying fast boats and semisubmersibles, the Coast Guard’s interdictions have
become more vital to protecting U.S. maritime borders.¶ What started as a contest for drug runners to find the fastest boat to outrun the Coast
Guard has expanded as advances in technology have made these fast-moving boats obsolete—easily tracked, traced and intercepted. The Coast
Guard has needed to stay on the cutting edge as drug cartels turned from sophisticated stealth designs to semisubmersibles and now to
something that was the territory of only nation-states just a few short years ago: fully submersible vessels.¶ New smuggling methods pose
significant challenges to maritime security. However, with advances in equipment, the Coast Guard will continue to combat drug trafficking.¶
Control of the Seas¶ Farther from U.S. shores, China is increasing its naval capacity in the South China Sea and beyond. Recent
disputes over the Senkaku or Diaoyu islands, claimed by both Japan and China, have sparked protests against Japan and calls
for action by the Chinese public. This, paired with Beijing’s increasing need for resources, places pressure on Beijing
leadership to embolden its stance in the Western Pacific.¶ As more international trade depends on Asia’s waterways, already the
busiest in the world, the U.S. must continue to protect its interests, as well as its allies. Game-changing technology is yet again at the
heart of the equation. As surveillance, offensive and defensive capabilities continually grow more sophisticated, they are
changing the shape of surface naval operations.¶ We could see this next generation of naval warfare sooner than we
think if Japan and China do not soon come to a peaceful agreement over the Senkaku or Diaoyu islands dispute. The
official U.S. position is that the islands are administered by Japan, and, as such, any attack on them would fall under the mutual
defense treaty between the U.S. and Japan. Therefore, the U.S. must state clearly its commitment to stand firm with its treaty
ally, Japan, in order to deter China or any other country from threatening military action.
Technology is key to maximize effectiveness given resource constraints
Ackerman 14(Robert K. Ackerman has been the editor in chief of SIGNAL Magazine for more than a dozen
years. SIGNAL Media provides in-depth, relevant and timely news in the communications and information
technology realms of the defense, intelligence and global security communities. “Technologies offer hope for Navy
Operations” 2/13/2014 http://www.afcea.org/content/?q=node/12376 accessed 7/10/14)
As with the other military services, the U.S. Navy is looking to technology to help it fulfill its mission obligations in a time
of severe budget constraints. Commercial technologies may provide effective solutions at a fraction of their military counterparts;
innovations promise to add advanced capabilities to existing platforms; and new readiness plans may help
economize deployments while increasing effectiveness. However, a lot of plans must fall into place for these
technologies to take their places in the force. Costs could be an obstacle for them as well. And, the changing nature of global
challenges could place even greater strains on operational capabilities.
Maritime power is key to power projection, deterrence and peace
England Jones and Clark 11(Gordon England served as the U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense and twice as
U.S. Secretary of the Navy, James Jones is a retired U.S. Marine Corps general and the former U.S. National Security
Advisor, and Vern Clark is a former U.S. Navy admiral who served as the Chief of Naval Operations of the U.S. Navy.
“The Necessity of U.S. Naval Power” 7/11/2011
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303339904576406163019350934 accessed 7/8/14 AZ
All our citizens, and especially our servicemen and women, expect and deserve a thorough review of critical security decisions. After all,
decisions today will affect the nation's strategic position for future generations.¶The future security environment underscores two
broad security trends. First, international political realities and the internationally agreed-to sovereign rights of
nations will increasingly limit the sustained involvement of American permanent land-based, heavy forces to the
more extreme crises. This will make offshore options for deterrence and power projection ever more paramount in
support of our national interests.¶ Second, the naval dimensions of American power will re-emerge as the primary means
for assuring our allies and partners, ensuring prosperity in times of peace, and countering anti-access, area-denial
efforts in times of crisis. We do not believe these trends will require the dismantling of land-based forces, as these forces will remain
essential reservoirs of power. As the United States has learned time and again, once a crisis becomes a conflict, it is
impossible to predict with certainty its depth, duration and cost. ¶ That said, the U.S. has been shrinking its
overseas land-based installations, so the ability to project power globally will make the forward presence of naval
forces an even more essential dimension of American influence.¶ What we do believe is that uniquely responsive NavyMarine Corps capabilities provide the basis on which our most vital overseas interests are safeguarded. Forward
presence and engagement is what allows the U.S. to maintain awareness, to deter aggression, and to quickly
respond to threats as they arise. Though we clearly must be prepared for the high-end threats, such preparation should be made in
balance with the means necessary to avoid escalation to the high end in the first place.¶ The versatility of maritime forces provides a
truly unmatched advantage. The sea remains a vast space that provides nearly unlimited freedom of maneuver.
Command of the sea allows for the presence of our naval forces, supported from a network of shore facilities, to be adjusted
and scaled with little external restraint. It permits reliance on proven capabilities such as prepositioned ships.¶ Maritime capabilities
encourage and enable cooperation with other nations to solve common sea-based problems such as piracy, illegal
trafficking, proliferation of W.M.D., and a host of other ills, which if unchecked can harm our friends and interests
abroad, and our own citizenry at home. The flexibility and responsiveness of naval forces provide our country with
a general strategic deterrent in a potentially violent and unstable world. Most importantly, our naval forces project
and sustain power at sea and ashore at the time, place, duration, and intensity of our choosing.
Senkaku conflict escalates uncontrollably---causes nuclear war
Hugh White 7/5/14, professor of strategic studies at the Australian National University in Canberra, former
Australian Deputy Secretary for Strategy and Intelligence, “Asia's Nightmare Scenario: A War in the East China Sea
Over the Senkakus,” http://nationalinterest.org/feature/asias-nightmare-scenario-war-the-east-china-sea-overthe-10805
It is clear that an armed clash between Japan and China over the Senkaku /Diaoyu islands is a real possibility . If that happens Washington would
face a very serious choice. Failing to support Japan militarily would fatally weaken the US-Japan alliance, torpedo President Obama’s ‘Pivot’, and undermine America’s whole position in Asia. But supporting Japan would mean going
to war with China. Whether that would be wise depends, as much as anything, on how
a US-China war over the Senkakus would play out. ¶ Of course no one knows for sure. There has not been a
war between nuclear-armed
serious maritime conflict for decades, nor war between two nuclear-armed states so we cannot be sure how the fighting would go. Nor do we have any real experience of
states, so that factor too adds to uncertainty. But there are some broad judgments that can be offered. If these judgments seem even moderately likely to be right, the implications for America’s choice
about war over the Senkakus are rather sobering. They suggest that this would be a war that America would not win, could not control, and should not undertake. And that of
course has huge implications for America’s position in Asia.¶ Suppose that fighting starts between China and Japan with a small armed clash near the islands, in which losses are sustained by both sides. It is possible this kind of
incident could be quickly contained without further fighting, but only if both Tokyo and Beijing acted with tact, forbearance and political courage. No one would bet on that, so it is at least equally likely that the clash would
escalate, and if so Japan would quickly ask America to help.¶ What happens next if America joins the fight depends first on the strategic aims of each side? China’s primary aim might be to land forces to take control of the islands,
and at the minimum it would want to exclude Japanese and US forces from the air- and sea-space around them. America’s and Japan’s aims might well look the same. Tokyo might decide that the time had come to put its control of
the islands beyond dispute by stationing forces on them, and at a minimum it would want to prevent further challenges of the kind we have seen recently by excluding Chinese forces from around the islands. ¶ What operational
objectives would flow for each side from these strategic aims? Let us first suppose that each side decides to limit the geographic scope of the conflict to the areas around the disputed islands. To achieve their primary aims by
deploying and sustaining occupation forces on the islands, either side would need to establish a high degree of sea and air control around them. That is likely to prove impossible for either of them: neither China nor the Allies have
any serious chance of achieving the sea and air control required to securely deploy and sustain occupation forces on the disputed islands against the other side’s formidable sea and air denial capabilities. So as long as both sides
limit their operations to the area around the islands, neither would be able to take control of the islands by establishing forces on them.¶ The situation is much less clear when we look at the two side’s minimum aims. To prevent
each other operating near the disputed islands they would only need to impose sea and air denial around them. Each side could probably deny the waters surrounding the islands to the other’s surface forces. Neither side could
prevent the other sustaining a substantial submarine presence there. But a battle for air superiority over and around the islands might be more evenly balanced. Allied advantages in quality and perhaps in tactics could be offset by
as long as operations were
limited to the immediate area under contention, the most likely outcome would be an inconclusive stalemate:
both sides could deny the waters around the islands to the other’s surface ships, but neither can exclude the
other’s submarine and air forces from the disputed area. It is hard to see how either side would consider this a satisfactory basis to
Chinese advantages in numbers and proximity, leading to a protracted and inconclusive air campaign in which losses on both sides would be quite high.¶ This suggests that
conclude hostilities. Neither would have to improve their position in relation to the islands enough to justify the costs of the fighting. Both would be trapped in an indefinite and costly campaign, especially in the air, with no way to
This means
both sides would have strong incentives to seek a quicker and more decisive result by broadening the conflict
beyond the disputed area itself. That could happen in several ways. Some people have suggested that America could prevail in this kind of situation by imposing a distant blockade of China which
end the conflict. Quite apart from any other considerations, this would prolong the extraordinary disruption of the conflict to each side’s economy, and convey a message of weakness to each side’s public. ¶
would bring its highly trade-dependent economy to its knees. Others have suggested that cyber-attacks or attacks on China’s satellites could compel China to back off. Certainly Washington has these options, but so does Beijing.
America is just as vulnerable as China to attacks on its sea-borne trade, cyber systems and satellites, and China’s capacity to mount such attacks is quite formidable. Moreover China may have options to damage America’s economy
through its immense holdings of US debt. This suggests that on balance neither side would see much to gain in opening these kinds of new fronts. ¶ They would therefore be more likely to look for advantage by extending
conventional military operations beyond the disputed area itself. They could try to degrade one another’s air and naval strength around the islands by attacking forces and bases beyond that primary Area of Operations. This is
what America’s Air-Sea Battle concept is all about, of course, but two can play at that game. China has plenty of options to attack US and Japanese forces and bases too. US and Japanese submarine and precision land-strike forces
could certainly sink a lot of Chinese ships and destroy a lot of air bases, but Chinese short- and medium- range ballistic missiles could likewise do a lot of damage to US and Japanese bases, and China too could sink a lot of allied
further escalation might then seem the only way to
achieve acceptable strategic outcomes for both sides. But neither side has escalation dominance: any step by one
side can be matched by the other. Both sides might nonetheless be impelled to escalate further because the cost
of relinquishing their strategic objectives will have increased as the scale and cost of the conflict has grown. The
longer and more bitter the fight becomes, the harder it becomes to step back, and the more dangerous each step
forward becomes.¶ At the top of this ladder of escalation looms the possibility of an intercontinental nuclear
exchange, which would, or at least should, weigh heavily on both side’s calculations right from the start. During the Cold War, the possibility of a large-scale nuclear exchange affected the calculations of the superpowers
ships.¶ So again it is hard to see how one side or the other could win a decisive advantage this way. That means
whenever there was a risk of even the smallest-scale skirmishes between their forces. That was because each superpower recognized how hard it would be to contain an escalating conflict before it reached the nuclear level,
because they both saw the danger that neither of them would back down and accept defeat even to avoid a nuclear exchange. War was avoided because both sides understood that their opponents were as grimly resolved as they
were.
Naval Power UQ
US Navy is in decline- unless action is taken power projection will be impossible
Galdorisi 11(Captain George Galdorisi is the Director of the Corporate Strategy Group at the Navy’s C4ISR
Center of Excellence. His Navy career included four command tours and five years as a carrier strike group chief of
staff. “The Tipping Point and the Future U.S. Navy Fleet” 4/26/2011
http://www.defensemedianetwork.com/stories/the-tipping-point-and-the-future-u-s-navy-fleet/ accessed 7/8/14
AZ)
Over the past two decades, we have witnessed the inexorable decline in the number of U.S. Navy ships and the
concomitant stress on the Navy’s ability to carry out its myriad missions. And in light of the aforementioned DoD and Department of the Navy
budgetary pressures, and in spite of the Navy’s strategy and posture statement that call for a naval force that is second to none, there is no
believable scenario that envisions the Navy achieving the capacity to do everything, for everyone, everywhere. As a result, some observers
began to ask whether the U.S. Navy needed to consider changing its strategy, shipbuilding plans, and force laydown to be able to carry out its
missions in the future¶ Enter the “Tipping Point.” In late 2009, the Chief of Naval Operations asked the Center for Naval
Analyses (CNA) to evaluate the characteristics of a globally influential navy and address the tipping point at which
the U.S. Navy would no longer be globally influential. The study “The Navy at a Tipping Point: Maritime Dominance
at Stake?” concluded that although a Navy of fewer ships than today’s fleet of 285 or so could still be influential
globally, the potential is great for tomorrow’s fleet and especially the Navy-after-Next to lose this capability unless
decisions are made – and soon – to reverse current trends.¶ “The Navy at a Tipping Point: Maritime Dominance at Stake?” study
has sparked a spirited debate within the Navy, Department of Defense, Congress, think tanks, and numerous blogs regarding CNA’s five
alternative futures for the Navy. As one indicator of the intensity of this debate, the authoritative U.S. Naval Institute’s Proceedings featured
two substantial articles on this subject in just a four-month period.¶ The Tipping Point study draws what it calls the “inevitable conclusion” that
a shrinking status quo Navy (meaning a Navy that evolves as current shipbuilding trends suggest it will) will do all things, but none of them very
well, and that this steady erosion in capacity would be a de facto hollowing out of the fleet that could easily erode combat capability. It
suggests that this “thin slicing” of the Navy, where no major changes are made and capacity continues to dwindle
across the board, is the worst of all possible scenarios and asks the question, “At what number of ships does the
Navy reach a point where it is no longer able to project combat credibility with constant forward presence?” The
study then suggests five potential choices or scenarios for U.S. Navy force structure and force laydown that the Navy could employ to attempt
to meet its worldwide commitments (see sidebar at bottom).
Ocean Tech Good---Blue Econ
Maritime tech is key to the Blue economy
Jones 12 (Michael B. Jones is President of The Maritime Alliance, whose mission is “Promoting Blue Tech & Blue
Jobs. She writes for the Maritime Museum of San Diego, “Promoting the Blue Economy: The Role of Maritime
Technology Clusters” pg.147 2012 http://themaritimealliance.org/pdf/BlueEconomy&Clusters_MBJ.pdf accessed
7/8/14 AZ)
This article contends that understanding and promoting the Blue Economy is critical for ¶ the future of the U.S. and the
world. Researchers and scientists at universities and research ¶ institutes around the U.S. and the world are on the
leading edge by helping create Blue ¶ Tech. And Blue Tech created in both public and private sectors is essential for
the creation of ¶ high-paying, environmentally and economically sustainable Blue Jobs to meet the needs of a ¶
growing global population. Recognition and financial support to strengthen existing maritime ¶ technology clusters,
and to create new ones where appropriate communities exist, will be ¶ important for the maritime technology
industry to develop its full potential.
Ocean Tech Good---Ocean Sci
Maritime tech development advances economic prosperity and conserves life and
resources
U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy 04 (The US Commission on Ocean Policy was formed to submit
recommendations for a coordinated and comprehensive national Ocean Policy. It is under the Council Of
Environmental Policy. “ENHANCING OCEAN INFRASTRUCTURE AND TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT” Chapter 27
pg.335, 2004 http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/oceancommission/documents/prelimreport/chapter27.pdf accessed
7/7/14AZ)
A robust infrastructure with cutting-edge technology forms the backbone of modern ocean science. It ¶ supports
scientific discovery and facilitates application of those discoveries to the management of ocean ¶ resources. The
nation has long relied on technological innovation, including satellites, early-warning systems, ¶ broadband
telecommunications, and pollution control devices to advance economic prosperity, protect life ¶ and property,
and conserve natural resources. Ocean research, exploration, mapping, and assessment ¶ activities will continue to
rely on modern facilities and new technologies to acquire data in the open ocean, ¶ along the coasts, in
challenging polar regions, on the seafloor, and even from space. The three major components of the nation’s
scientific infrastructure for oceans and coasts are: ¶ • Facilities—land-based laboratories and ocean platforms,
including ships, airplanes, satellites, and ¶ submersibles, where research and observations are conducted; ¶ •
Hardware—research equipment, instrumentation, sensors, and information technology systems used in ¶ the
facilities; and ¶ • Technical Support—the expert human resources needed to operate and maintain the facilities
and hardware ¶ as well as participating in data collection, assimilation, analysis, modeling, and dissemination.
Oil
1AC Oil Dependence
U.S. oil dependence projected to remain high in coming years, assumes new fracking
boom.
Carl Pope 11/01/13, former executive director of the Sierra Club, is senior adviser to Securing America's Energy
Future. http://www.mercurynews.com/opinion/ci_24427996/oil-dependence-fracking-is-no-remedy-alternativefuels
Forty years ago, the Saudi Oil Ministry informed the Secretary of Defense that it would no longer supply fuel to the U.S. 6th Fleet. The OPEC oil
embargo had begun. For the next five years, the U.S. made serious efforts to escape monopoly dependence on oil. Then, with the decline in oil
prices, we fell asleep. Even when prices began to rise to the stratosphere in 2004, America kept on snoozing. Whenever voices from the
military, who bear the heaviest burden, urge us to end oil's stranglehold on our transportation system, the oil cartel and industry concoct a new
theory to put us to back to sleep. This time, the sedative is the promise that huge, exciting, Saudi-sized oil production in the U.S. will achieve
"energy independence." Increased U.S. oil production, combined with more efficient autos pouring into the marketplace powered by the
Obama fuel-efficiency regulations and a revived U.S. auto industry, are indeed lowering the volume of oil that the U.S. imports. But world oil
prices have risen so much that the dollars and jobs we export to pay for imported oil are greater than ever . We'll
add another $4 trillion to our national debt from importing oil over the next 20 years. As long as the United
States uses almost 20 million barrels of oil each day, increasing our domestic production by fracking a
million or two barrels a day -- which are the projections -- still leaves us importing more oil than we
did when the first embargo hit, at a much higher price. And new U.S. oil costs more than $90 a barrel to find and produce,
so it only comes to market if oil continues to be unaffordable. Every American recession over the past several decades has been preceded by, or
was concurrent with, an oil price spike. The U.S. economy is tied to the highly unpredictable, cartel-influenced global oil market, which
manipulates supply and prices. As long as oil is the lifeblood of the U.S. economy, wherever a specific barrel comes from, our military will be
forced to bear the burden of guarding against a supply disruption anywhere in the globe. Oil dependence, at times, requires us to
accommodate hostile governments or alter our pursuit of key national security objectives. We don't tolerate such monopolies elsewhere. We
source electricity from hydro, gas, coal, nuclear and now wind, geothermal and solar. If wheat gets too pricey, we buy rice or corn; chicken can
replace beef. It's folly that nothing is set up to replace oil in our cars, planes or trucks when there are lots of perfectly good energy sources that
could cost less than $100 per barrel. Whenever oil prices spike, we crowd our underinvested transit systems; let's build them out. Natural gas
could power trucks for a fraction of the cost per mile of diesel; electric cars free drivers from the volatile oil market. We just need to make
these alternatives the norm. It's not that oil is imported that is crippling us, or even that it is expensive. It is the fact that it has a monopoly -one our environment, our security and our economy can no longer afford. After 35 years, it's time for the U.S. to wake up.
The plan solves-provides energy to displace fossil fuels
Friedman 14 Becca Friedman is a writer for the Ocean Energy Council, “EXAMINING THE FUTURE OF OCEAN
THERMAL ENERGY CONVERSION”, March 2014, http://www.oceanenergycouncil.com/examining-future-oceanthermal-energy-conversion//OF
Were its vast potential harnessed, OTEC could change the face of energy consumption by causing a shift away from fossil
fuels. Environmentally, such a transition would greatly reduce greenhouse gas emissions and decrease the rate of global warming.
Geopolitically, having an alternative energy source could free the United States , and other countries, from foreign
oil dependency. As Huang said, “We just cannot ignore oceanic energy, especially OTEC, because the ocean is so huge and the
potential is so big… No matter who assesses, if you rely on fossil energy for the future, the future isn’t very bright…For the
future, we have to look into renewable energy, look for the big resources, and the future is in the ocean .”
Oil dependence makes a US-China war inevitable, it’s zero sum.
Klare 10, Michael T. Klare is a professor of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College, “Tomgram:
Michael Klare, China Shakes the World”, 9/19/2009, TomDispatch.com,
http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175297//OF
Already, China’s
efforts to bolster its ties with its foreign-oil providers have produced geopolitical friction
with the United States. There is a risk of far more serious Sino-American conflict as we enter the
“tough oil” era and the world supply of easily accessible petroleum rapidly shrinks. According to the DoE, the global
supply of oil and other petroleum liquids in 2035 will be 110.6 million barrels per day – precisely enough to meet anticipated world demand at
that time. Many oil geologists believe, however, that global
oil output will reach a peak level of output well below
100 million barrels per day by 2015, and begin declining after that. In addition, the oil that remains will
increasingly be found in difficult places to reach or in highly unstable regions. If these predictions prove accurate, the
United States and China -- the world’s two leading oil importers -- could become trapped in a zero-sum greatpower contest for access to diminishing supplies of exportable petroleum. What will happen under these
circumstances is, of course, impossible to predict, especially since the potential for conflict abounds. If both countries continue on
their current path -- arming favored suppliers in a desperate bid to secure long-term advantage -- the heavily armed petro-states
may also become ever more fearful of, or covetous of, their (equally well-equipped) neighbors. With both the U.S. and China
deploying growing numbers of military advisers and instructors to such countries, the stage could be set for mutual involvement in local wars
and border conflicts. Neither Beijing nor Washington may seek such involvement, but the
logic of arms-for-oil diplomacy
makes this an unavoidable risk. It is not hard, then, to picture a future moment when the United States
and China are locked in a global struggle over the world’s remaining supplies of oil. Indeed, many in official
Washington believe that such a collision is nearly inevitable. “China’s near-term focus on preparing for contingencies in the
Taiwan Strait… is an important driver of its [military] modernization,” the Department of Defense noted in the 2008 edition of its annual report,
The Military Power of the People’s Republic of China. “However, analysis of China’s military acquisitions and strategic thinking suggests
Beijing is also developing capabilities for use in other contingencies, such as a conflict over resources...”
Peak Oil UQ
Peak oil is now- production is declining and it will destroy the economy and make
resource wars inevitable
Ahmed 13 Dr Nafeez Ahmed is executive director of the Institute for Policy Research, “Former BP geologist:
peak oil is here and it will 'break economies'”, 12/23/13, The Guardian,
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/earth-insight/2013/dec/23/british-petroleum-geologist-peak-oilbreak-economy-recession//OF
A former British Petroleum (BP) geologist has warned that the age of cheap oil is long gone, bringing with it the danger of
"continuous recession" and increased risk of conflict and hunger. At a lecture on 'Geohazards' earlier this month as part of the
postgraduate Natural Hazards for Insurers course at University College London (UCL), Dr. Richard G. Miller, who worked for BP from 1985
before retiring in 2008, said that official data from the International Energy Agency (IEA), US Energy Information Administration (EIA),
International Monetary Fund (IMF), among other sources, showed that conventional oil had most likely peaked around 2008. Dr.
Miller critiqued the official industry line that global reserves will last 53 years at current rates of consumption, pointing out that "peaking is the
result of declining production rates, not declining reserves." Despite new discoveries and increasing reliance on unconventional oil and gas, 37
countries are already post-peak, and global oil production is declining at about 4.1% per year , or 3.5 million barrels a day
(b/d) per year: "We need new production equal to a new Saudi Arabia every 3 to 4 years to maintain and grow supply...
New discoveries have not matched consumption since 1986. We are drawing down on our reserves, even though reserves are
apparently climbing every year. Reserves are growing due to better technology in old fields, raising the amount we can recover – but
production is still falling at 4.1% p.a. [per annum]." Dr. Miller, who prepared annual in-house projections of future oil supply for BP from 2000
to 2007, refers to this as the "ATM problem" – "more money, but still limited daily withdrawals." As a consequence: "Production of
conventional liquid oil has been flat since 2008. Growth in liquid supply since then has been largely of natural gas liquids [NGL]- ethane,
propane, butane, pentane - and oil-sand bitumen." Dr. Miller is co-editor of a special edition of the prestigious journal, Philosophical
Transactions of the Royal Society A, published this month on the future of oil supply. In an introductory paper co-authored with Dr. Steve R.
Sorrel, co-director of the Sussex Energy Group at the University of Sussex in Brighton, they argue that among oil industry experts "there is a
growing consensus that the era of cheap oil has passed and that we are entering a new and very different phase."
They endorse the conservative conclusions of an extensive earlier study by the government-funded UK Energy Research Centre (UKERC): "... a
sustained decline in global conventional production appears probable before 2030 and there is significant risk of this beginning before 2020...
on current evidence the inclusion of tight oil [shale oil] resources appears unlikely to significantly affect this conclusion ,
partly because the resource base appears relatively modest." In fact, increasing dependence on shale could worsen decline rates in the long
run: "Greater reliance upon tight oil resources produced using hydraulic fracturing will exacerbate any rising trend in global average decline
rates, since these wells have no plateau and decline extremely fast - for example, by 90% or more in the first 5 years." Tar sands will fare
similarly, they conclude, noting that "the Canadian oil sands will deliver only 5 mb per day by 2030, which represents less than 6% of the IEA
projection of all-liquids production by that date." Despite the cautious projection of global peak oil "before 2020", they also point out that:
"Crude oil production grew at approximately 1.5% per year between 1995 and 2005, but then plateaued with more recent increases in liquids
supply largely deriving from NGLs, oil sands and tight oil. These trends are expected to continue... Crude oil production is heavily concentrated
in a small number of countries and a small number of giant fields, with approximately 100 fields producing one half of global supply, 25
producing one quarter and a single field (Ghawar in Saudi Arabia) producing approximately 7%. Most of these giant fields are relatively old,
many are well past their peak of production, most of the rest seem likely to enter decline within the next decade or so and few new giant fields
are expected to be found." "The final peak is going to be decided by the price - how much can we afford to pay?", Dr. Miller told me in an
interview about his work. "If we can afford to pay $150 per barrel, we could certainly produce more given a few years of lead time for new
developments, but it would break economies again." Miller argues that for all intents and purposes, peak oil has arrived as conditions are such
that despite volatility, prices can never return to pre-2004 levels: "The oil price has risen almost continuously since 2004 to date, starting at
$30. There was a great spike to $150 and then a collapse in 2008/2009, but it has since climbed to $110 and held there. The price rise brought a
lot of new exploration and development, but these new fields have not actually increased production by very much, due to the decline of older
fields. This is compatible with the idea that we are pretty much at peak today. This recession is what peak feels like." Although he is
dismissive of shale oil and gas' capacity to prevent a peak and subsequent long decline in global oil production, Miller recognises that there is
still some leeway that could bring significant, if temporary dividends for US economic growth - though only as "a relatively short-lived
phenomenon": "We're like a cage of lab rats that have eaten all the cornflakes and discovered that you can eat the
cardboard packets too. Yes, we can, but... Tight oil may reach 5 or even 6 million b/d in the US, which will hugely help the US economy,
along with shale gas. Shale resources, though, are inappropriate for more densely populated countries like the UK, because the industrialisation
of the countryside affects far more people (with far less access to alternative natural space), and the economic benefits are spread more thinly
across more people. Tight oil production in the US is likely to peak before 2020. There absolutely will not be enough tight oil production to
replace the US' current 9 million b/d of imports." In turn, by prolonging global economic recession, high oil prices may reduce
demand. Peak demand in turn may maintain a longer undulating oil production plateau: "We are probably in peak oil today, or at
least in the foot-hills. Production could rise a little for a few years yet, but not sufficiently to bring the price down; alternatively, continuous
recession in much of the world may keep demand essentially flat for years at the $110/bbl price we have today. But we can't grow the supply at
average past rates of about 1.5% per year at today's prices." The fundamental dependence of global economic growth on cheap oil supplies
suggests that as we continue into the age of expensive oil and gas, without appropriate efforts to mitigate the impacts and transition to a new
energy system, the world faces a future of economic and geopolitical turbulence: "In the US, high oil prices correlate with recessions,
although not all recessions correlate with high oil prices. It does not prove causation, but it is highly likely that when the US pays
more than 4% of its GDP for oil, or more than 10% of GDP for primary energy, the economy declines as money is
sucked into buying fuel instead of other goods and services... A shortage of oil will affect everything in the economy. I expect
more famine, more drought, more resource wars and a steady inflation in the energy cost of all commodities ."
According to another study in the Royal Society journal special edition by professor David J. Murphy of Northern Illinois University, an expert in
the role of energy in economic growth, the energy return on investment (EROI) for global oil and gas production - the amount of energy
produced compared to the amount of energy invested to get, deliver and use that energy - is roughly 15 and declining. For the US, EROI of
oil and gas production is 11 and declining; and for unconventional oil and biofuels is largely less than 10. The problem is that as EROI
decreases, energy prices increase. Thus, Murphy concludes: "... the minimum oil price needed to increase the oil supply in the near term is at
levels consistent with levels that have induced past economic recessions. From these points, I conclude that, as the EROI of the average barrel
of oil declines, long-term economic growth will become harder to achieve and come at an increasingly higher financial, energetic and
environmental cost." Current EROI in the US, Miller said, is simply "not enough to support the US infrastructure, even if
America was self-sufficient, without raising production even further than current consumption ."
The “shale boom” won’t solve- even post-shale, we have years, not decades
Ahmed 6/6 Dr. Nafeez Ahmed is an international security journalist and academic, “US shale boom is over,
energy revolution needed to avert blackouts”, 6/6/14, TheGuardian.com,
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/earth-insight/2014/jun/06/shale-oil-boom-over-energy-revolutionblackouts//OF
I hate to say I told you so, but... In 2012, the International Energy Agency (IEA) forecast that the US would outpace Saudi Arabia in oil
production thanks to the shale boom by 2020, becoming a net exporter by 2030. The forecast was seen by many as decisive evidence of the
renewal of the oil age, while informed detractors were at best ignored, at worst ridiculed. Among my many reports exposing the geological and
economic fallacies behind the shale boom narrative are this, this, this and this. Even here on the Guardian, one headline declared the IEA report
shows that "peak oil idea has gone up in flames." But the IEA's latest assessment has proved the detractors right all along. The agency's World
Energy Investment Outlook released this week says that US tight oil production - which draws largely from the Bakken in North Dakota
and the Eagle Ford in Texas - will peak around 2020 before declining. The new analysis puts an end to the '100 year
supply' myth widely promulgated by industry, and moves closer to the more sceptical assessment of a US tight oil peak within this decade.
The IEA report says: "... output from North America plateaus [from around 2020] and then falls back from the mid-2020s onwards." The
shortfall will make the US, and countries in Europe looking to import from America, increasingly dependent on Middle East supplies: "Yet there
is a risk that Middle East investment fails to pick up in time to avert a shortfall in supply, because of an uncertain investment climate in some
countries and the priority often given to spending in other areas." The IEA pointed out that in the wake of the Arab spring, Middle East oil
states are feeling the pressure to divert massive oil subsidies which maintain production into more social spending to
alleviate instability. If they don't, they could topple. These countries already pour $800 billion in annual oil revenue into energy subsidies - and
if they fail to cover the predicted shortfall due to the post-peak fall in US output, by 2025 the average cost of a barrel of oil could climb up by
$15. This March, when I broached them about the danger of an imminent oil shock, I was told confidently by a spokesperson at the UK
Department for Energy and Climate Change that there was no risk of the lights going out - UK energy policy had it sorted. Now IEA chief
economist Fatih Birol says: "In Europe we are facing the risk of the lights going off. This is not a joke ." We need $48 trillion of
new investment to keep the lights on - and it's far from clear that investing in increasingly expensive unconventional oil and gas
is going to cut it, without serious impacts on the global economy . Currently, already, the IEA report reveals that over 80% of oil
company investment is going into making up for exhausted fields where production is in decline. The agency also calls to ramp up investments
in renewables and increasing efficiency, along with regulatory reform to incentivise investments, as part of the package. While the fossil
fuel empire is crumbling, the renewable energy sector has received 60% of total investment in power plants from 2000
to 2012. Those who keep banking on fossil fuels to solve our energy and economic woes should take stock - they ain't the answer. The time to
ween well off was yesterday.
Plan Solves
OTEC would be able to fully replace oil by 2050, most efficient and effective source of
energy.
Jim Baird 13, Owner and Partner at Global Warming Mitigation Methods, June 13 2013, “Eternal Energy
Production,” http://theenergycollective.com/jim-baird/236986/eternal-energy-production
By 2050 we would be out of oil, and if we start converting coal and gas to liquid fuels their rates of decline will also increase.The IEA has
forecast it will take $8 trillion in investments in the oil industry over the next 25 years to maintain oil production at current levels.Why would
any diligent manager make such an investment; in an enterprise that will do at least as much damage again to the environment and will cease
to be a going concern 18 years later?An investment in the right renewable energy on the other hand, is an investment in the planet’s future as
well as an outlay with an open-ended return. It is also an investment that is ultimately going to have to be made, so best do it now rather than
pouring trillions into trying to prop up a dying industry and compounding environmental damage in the process first.So what are the renewable
energy alternatives? They are solar, wind, hydroelectricity, geothermal power, biomass, nuclear, tidal, wave power,
ocean thermal energy conversion, space based solar power and salinity gradients As renewable detractors love to
point out solar and wind are intermittent and thus can be relied on only about a third of the time. They also have a
high NIMBY quotient and require significant space. We have already tapped most of the hydroelectricity available
but could squeeze out a little more but nowhere near the 15 terawatts required. And again there are NIMBY and
environmental issues.The Earth's internal thermal energy flows to the surface by conduction at a rate of 44.2
terawatts. Seventy percent of this flows into the oceans however, so it is estimated that the potential for
electricity generation from geothermal energy ranges between .035 to 2 terawatts and again there are NIMBY
issues as the process is believed to be associated with localize earthquakes. Biomass could be significant were it
not for global food and water shortages as well as the soil mining issue.According to the IPCC, "Today it is not clear
how and by which technologies the current problems facing nuclear energy may be resolved. What actually
happens will depend on how safety, waste disposal, and proliferation concerns are resolved, and whether the
green house debate adds increasing importance to nuclear energy's 'carbon benignness'. Consequently, after 2020
completely different nuclear futures may unfold varying from an almost five-fold expansion between 1990 and 2050 to a 20 percent
decline."Even if nuclear were to expand five fold, it would still produce only a third of the 15 terawatts of renewable energy required and
considering it also produces twice as much waste heat as energy, it would add an additional 10 terawatts of heat to an already overheating
planet. According to Siemens, “it is widely agreed that tidal stream energy capacity could exceed 120GW globally,” which is about two orders
of magnitude less than is required.A study, ASSESSING THE GLOBAL WAVE ENERGY POTENTIAL presented to the 29th International Conference
on Ocean, Offshore Mechanics and Arctic Engineering concluded the global gross wave resource was about 3.7 TW.It is estimated the oceans
of the world are accumulating 330 terawatts of excess heat each year and that as much as 25 terawatts of this heat
can be converted to electrical energy by the process of ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC ).A future gigawatt
space power system has been proposed but the current capacity to put such a system into orbit is limited. The global osmotic, or salinity
gradient, power capacity, which is concentrated at the mouths of rivers, is estimated by Statkraft to be in the region of 1,600 to 1,700 TWh
annually. This is about two orders of magnitude less than the 2008 global consumption of 132,000 TWh.In conclusion it is hard to see how
Hoffert’s 15TW of renewable energy can be attained by 2050 or how the 14TW currently being produced from fossil
fuels can be replaced in the absence of a large OTEC component, which seems self-evident considering the oceans are the
largest hot as well as cold reservoirs on the planet.In fact we can obtain over 80 percent of the total 2050 need from this one
source and can continue to do so as long as the sun shines and the icecaps melt on a seasonal basis to replenish
the ocean's cold, deep, heat sink, which OTEC would insure would continue to be the case .
Warming
1AC Warming
Warming is real and anthropogenic – reducing CO2 is key and adaptation can’t solve.
Our science is watertight and theirs is garbage.
Harvey 2013 Fiona, Guardian Environment Reporter, IPCC climate report: human impact is 'unequivocal', September 27 2013,
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/sep/27/ipcc-climate-report-un-secretary-general
World leaders must now respond to an "unequivocal" message from climate scientists and act with policies to cut greenhouse gas emissions,
the United Nations secretary-general urged on Friday. Introducing a major report from a high level UN panel of climate scientists, Ban Ki-moon
said, "The heat is on. We must act." The world's leading climate scientists, who have been meeting in all-night sessions this week in
the Swedish capital, said there was no longer room for doubt that climate change was occurring, and the dominant
cause has been human actions in pouring greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. In their starkest warning yet, following nearly
seven years of new research on the climate, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said it was "unequivocal"
and that even if the world begins to moderate greenhouse gas emissions, warming is likely to cross the critical threshold of 2C by
the end of this century. That would have serious consequences, including sea level rises, heatwaves and changes to
rainfall meaning dry regions get less and already wet areas receive more. In response to the report, the US secretary of state, John Kerry, said
in a statement: "This is yet another wakeup call: those who deny the science or choose excuses over action are playing with fire." "Once again,
the science grows clearer, the case grows more compelling, and the costs of inaction grow beyond anything that
anyone with conscience or commonsense should be willing to even contemplate," he said. He said that livelihoods around
the world would be impacted. "With those stakes, the response must be all hands on deck. It's not about one country making a demand of
another. It's the science itself, demanding action from all of us. The United States is deeply committed to leading on climate change." In a
crucial reinforcement of their message – included starkly in this report for the first time – the IPCC warned that the world cannot
afford to keep emitting carbon dioxide as it has been doing in recent years. To avoid dangerous levels of climate
change, beyond 2C, the world can only emit a total of between 800 and 880 gigatonnes of carbon. Of this, about 530
gigatonnes had already been emitted by 2011. That has a clear implication for our fossil fuel consumption, meaning that
humans cannot burn all of the coal, oil and gas reserves that countries and companies possess. As the former UN
commissioner Mary Robinson told the Guardian last week, that will have "huge implications for social and economic development." It will also
be difficult for business interests to accept. The central estimate is that warming is likely to exceed 2C, the threshold beyond which scientists
think global warming will start to wreak serious changes to the planet. That threshold is likely to be reached even if we begin to cut global
greenhouse gas emissions, which so far has not happened, according to the report. Other key points from the report are: • Atmospheric
concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide are now at levels "unprecedented in at least the last 800,000 years." • Since the
1950's it's "extremely likely" that human activities have been the dominant cause of the temperature rise. • Concentrations of CO2 and other
greenhouse gases in the atmosphere have increased to levels that are unprecedented in at least 800,000 years. The burning of fossil fuels is the
main reason behind a 40% increase in C02 concentrations since the industrial revolution. • Global temperatures are likely to rise by 0.3C to
4.8C, by the end of the century depending on how much governments control carbon emissions. • Sea levels are expected to rise a further 2682cm by the end of the century. • The oceans have acidified as they have absorbed about a third of the carbon dioxide emitted. Thomas
Stocker, co-chair of the working group on physical science, said the message that greenhouse gases must be reduced was clear.
"We give very relevant guidance on the total amount of carbon that can't be emitted to stay to 1.5 or 2C. We are not on the path that would
lead us to respect that warming target [which has been agreed by world governments]." He said: "Continued emissions of greenhouse
gases will cause further warming and changes in all components of the climate system. Limiting climate change will
require substantial and sustained reductions of greenhouse gas emissions." Though governments around the world have
agreed to curb emissions, and at numerous international meetings have reaffirmed their commitment to holding warming to below 2C by the
end of the century, greenhouse gas concentrations are still rising at record rates. Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the IPCC, said it was for
governments to take action based on the science produced by the panel, consisting of thousands of pages of detail, drawing on the work of
more than 800 scientists and hundreds of scientific papers. The scientists also put paid to claims that global warming has "stopped" because
global temperatures in the past 15 years have not continued the strong upward march of the preceding years, which is a key argument put
forward by sceptics to cast doubt on climate science. But the IPCC said the longer term trends were clear: "Each of the last three
decades has been successively warmer at the Earth's surface than any preceding decade since 1850 in the northern
hemisphere [the earliest date for reliable temperature records for the whole hemisphere]." The past 15 years were not such an unusual case,
said Stocker. "People always pick 1998 but [that was] a very special year, because a strong El Niño made it unusually hot, and since then there
have been some medium-sized volcanic eruptions that have cooled the climate." But he said that further research was needed on the role of
the oceans, which are thought to have absorbed more than 90% of the warming so far. The scientists have faced sustained attacks
from so-called sceptics, often funded by "vested interests" according to the UN, who try to pick holes in each item of
evidence for climate change. The experts have always known they must make their work watertight against such an onslaught, and
every conclusion made by the IPCC must pass scrutiny by all of the world's governments before it can be published.
Their warning on Friday was sent out to governments around the globe, who convene and fund the IPCC. It was 1988 when scientists were first
convened for this task, and in the five landmark reports since then the research has become ever clearer. Now, scientists say they
are certain that "warming in the climate system is unequivocal and since 1950 many changes have been observed
throughout the climate system that are unprecedented over decades to millennia." That warning, from such a sober body,
hemmed in by the need to submit every statement to extraordinary levels of scrutiny, is the starkest yet . "Heatwaves
are very likely to occur more frequently and last longer. As the earth warms, we expect to see currently wet regions receiving more rainfall, and
dry regions receiving less, although there will be exceptions," Stocker said. Qin Dahe, also co-chair of the working group, said: "As the ocean
warm, and glaciers and ice sheets reduce, global mean sea level will continue to rise, but at a faster rate than we have experienced over the
past 40 years." Prof David Mackay, chief scientific adviser to the Department of Energy and Climate Change, said: "The far-reaching
consequences of this warming are becoming understood, although some uncertainties remain. The most significant uncertainty,
however, is how much carbon humanity will choose to put into the atmosphere in the future. It is the total sum of
all our carbon emissions that will determine the impacts. We need to take action now, to maximise our chances of
being faced with impacts that we, and our children, can deal with. Waiting a decade or two before taking climate change action will
certainly lead to greater harm than acting now."
OTEC solves---causes a shift from fossil fuels and a reduction in emissions
Friedman 14 Becca Friedman is a writer for the Ocean Energy Council, “EXAMINING THE FUTURE OF OCEAN
THERMAL ENERGY CONVERSION”, March 2014, http://www.oceanenergycouncil.com/examining-future-oceanthermal-energy-conversion//OF
Were its vast potential harnessed, OTEC could change the face of energy consumption by causing a shift away from
fossil fuels. Environmentally, such a transition would greatly reduce greenhouse gas emissions and decrease the
rate of global warming. Geopolitically, having an alternative energy source could free the United States , and other
countries, from foreign oil dependency. As Huang said, “We just cannot ignore oceanic energy, especially OTEC, because the ocean is
so huge and the potential is so big… No matter who assesses, if you rely on fossil energy for the future, the future isn’t very
bright…For the future, we have to look into renewable energy, look for the big resources, and the future is in the ocean.”
Independently sequesters carbon to mitigate warming
Barry 8 Christopher D. Barry, P.E. is a naval architect and co-chair of the Society of Naval Architects and Marine
Engineers ad hoc panel on ocean renewable energy, “Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion and CO2 Sequestration”,
RenewableEnergyWorld.com, 7/1/2008,
http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2008/07/ocean-thermal-energy-conversion-and-co2sequestration-52762//OF
However, deep cold water is laden with nutrients. In the tropics, the warm surface waters are lighter than the cold water and act as a
cap to keep the nutrients in the deeps. This is why there is much less life in the tropical ocean than in coastal waters or near the poles. The
tropical ocean is only fertile where there is an upwelling of cold water. One such upwelling is off the coast of Peru, where the
Peru (or Humboldt) Current brings up nutrient laden waters. In this area, with lots of solar energy and nutrients, ocean fertility is about
1800 grams of carbon uptake per square meter per year, compared to only 100 grams typically. This creates a rich fishery, but
most of the carbon eventually sinks to the deeps in the form of waste products and dead microorganisms. This process is nothing
new; worldwide marine microorganisms currently sequester about forty billion metric tonnes of carbon per year. They are the major
long term sink for carbon dioxide. In a recent issue of Nature, Lovelock and Rapley suggested using wave-powered pumps to
bring up water from the deeps to sequester carbon. But OTEC also brings up prodigious amounts of deep water and can do the
same thing. In one design, a thousand cubic meters of water per second are required to produce 70 MW of net output power. We can make
estimates of fertility enhancement and sequestration, but a guess is that an OTEC plant designed to optimize nutrification might produce
10,000 metric tonnes of carbon dioxide sequestration per year per MW . The recent challenge by billionaire Sir Richard
Branson is to sequester one billion tonnes of carbon dioxide per year in order to halt global warming, so an
aggressive OTEC program, hundreds of several hundred MW plants might meet this.
Absent cuts in emissions, warming causes extinction
Mazo 10 (Jeffrey Mazo – PhD in Paleoclimatology from UCLA, Managing Editor, Survival and Research Fellow for Environmental Security
and Science Policy at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, 3-2010, “Climate Conflict: How global warming threatens
security and what to do about it,” pg. 122)
The best estimates for global warming to the end of the century range from 2.5-4.~C above pre-industrial levels,
depending on the scenario. Even in the best-case scenario, the low end of the likely range is 1.goC, and in the worst 'business
as usual' projections, which actual emissions have been matching, the range of likely warming runs from 3.1--7.1°C. Even keeping
emissions at constant 2000 levels (which have already been exceeded), global temperature would still be expected to reach 1.2°C
(O'9""1.5°C)above pre-industrial levels by the end of the century." Without
early and severe reductions in emissions, the
effects of climate change in the second half of the twenty-first century are likely to be catastrophic for the stability
and security of countries in the developing world - not to mention the associated human tragedy. Climate change could even
undermine the strength and stability of emerging and advanced economies, beyond the knock-on effects on
security of widespread state failure and collapse in developing countries.' And although they have been condemned as
melodramatic and alarmist, many informed observers believe that unmitigated climate change beyond the end of the
century could pose an existential threat to civilisation." What is certain is that there is no precedent in human experience for
such rapid change or such climatic conditions, and even in the best case adaptation to these extremes would mean profound social, cultural
and political changes
No adaptation – 4 degree temperature increase will breakdown civilization and cause
every impact
Roberts 13 (David, citing the World Bank Review’s compilation of climate studies, “If you aren’t alarmed about climate, you aren’t
paying attention” http://grist.org/climate-energy/climate-alarmism-the-idea-is-surreal/)
We know we’ve raised global average temperatures around 0.8 degrees C so far. We know that 2
degrees C is where most scientists predict
catastrophic and irreversible impacts. And we know that we are currently on a trajectory that will push
temperatures up 4 degrees or more by the end of the century. What would 4 degrees look like? A recent World Bank review of the
science reminds us. First, it’ll get hot: Projections for a 4°C world show a dramatic increase in the intensity and frequency of
high-temperature extremes. Recent extreme heat waves such as in Russia in 2010 are likely to become the new normal summer in a 4°C world.
Tropical South America, central Africa, and all tropical islands in the Pacific are likely to regularly experience
heat waves of unprecedented magnitude and duration . In this new high-temperature climate regime, the coolest months are likely to
be substantially warmer than the warmest months at the end of the 20th century. In regions such as the Mediterranean, North Africa, the Middle East, and the
Tibetan plateau, almost all summer months are likely to be warmer than the most extreme heat waves presently experienced. For example, the warmest July
in the Mediterranean region could be 9°C warmer than today’s warmest July. Extreme
heat waves in recent years have had severe
impacts, causing heat-related deaths, forest fires, and harvest losses. The impacts of the extreme heat waves projected for a 4°C
world have not been evaluated, but they could be expected to vastly exceed the consequences experienced to date and
potentially exceed the adaptive capacities of many societies and natural systems. [my emphasis] Warming to 4 degrees
would also lead to “an increase of about 150 percent in acidity of the ocean,” leading to levels of acidity
“unparalleled in Earth’s history.” That’s bad news for, say, coral reefs: The combination of thermally induced bleaching events, ocean acidification,
and sea-level rise threatens large fractions of coral reefs even at 1.5°C global warming. The regional extinction of entire coral reef ecosystems, which could
occur well before 4°C is reached, would have profound consequences for their dependent species and for the people who depend on them for food, income,
tourism, and shoreline protection. It will also “likely lead to a sea-level rise of 0.5 to 1 meter, and possibly more, by 2100, with several meters
more to be realized in the coming centuries.” That rise won’t be spread evenly, even within regions and countries — regions close to the equator will see even
higher seas. There are also indications that it
would “significantly exacerbate existing water scarcity in many regions,
particularly northern and eastern Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia, while additional countries in Africa would be newly confronted
with water scarcity on a national scale due to population growth.” Also, more extreme weather events: Ecosystems will be affected
by more frequent extreme weather events, such as forest loss due to droughts and wildfire exacerbated by land use and
agricultural expansion. In Amazonia, forest fires could as much as double by 2050 with warming of approximately 1.5°C to 2°C above preindustrial levels.
Changes would be expected to be even more severe in a 4°C world. Also
loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services: In a 4°C world,
likely to become the dominant driver of ecosystem shifts, surpassing habitat destruction as
the greatest threat to biodiversity. Recent research suggests that large-scale loss of biodiversity is likely to occur
in a 4°C world, with climate change and high CO2 concentration driving a transition of the Earth’s ecosystems
into a state unknown in human experience. Ecosystem damage would be expected to dramatically reduce the provision of ecosystem
services on which society depends (for example, fisheries and protection of coastline afforded by coral reefs and mangroves.) New research also
indicates a “rapidly rising risk of crop yield reductions as the world warms.” So food will be tough. All this will add up to
“large-scale displacement of populations and have adverse consequences for human security and economic
and trade systems.” Given the uncertainties and long-tail risks involved, “there is no certainty that adaptation to a 4°C
world is possible.” There’s a small but non-trivial chance of advanced civilization breaking down
climate change seems
entirely. Now ponder the fact that some scenarios show us going up to 6 degrees by the end of the century, a level of devastation we have not studied
and barely know how to conceive. Ponder the fact that somewhere
along the line, though we don’t know exactly where, enough selfreinforcing feedback loops will be running to make climate change unstoppable and irreversible for centuries to
come. That would mean handing our grandchildren and their grandchildren not only a burned, chaotic, denuded world, but a world
that is inexorably more inhospitable with every passing decade.
A2 SO2 Screw
SO2 can’t solve- not enough time in the atmosphere
Mohan 13 Geoffrey Mohan is a reporter for the Los Angeles Times, “Pollutant's cooling effect on climate may
be overstated, study shows”, 5/14/13, Los Angeles Times, http://articles.latimes.com/2013/may/14/news/laclimate-cooling-overstated-20130514//OF
Don’t count on sulfur dioxide to bridle climate change. The ability of that pollutant to reflect the sun is not quite
what it was assumed to be, according to new research. Sulfur dioxide -- a common pollutant from burning fossil fuels, contributes to the
formation of aerosol particles in the atmosphere, which reflect sunlight. Figuring out just how much this can counteract greenhouse effects of
carbon dioxide and other gases has remained one of the bigger uncertainties in climate modeling. Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for
Chemistry now say that climate models probably overstate the cooling effect. They highlighted an often-overlooked
chemical process involving mineral dust in clouds that affects the lifespan of sulfate aerosol particles. The scientists
studied clouds formed on a mountaintop, chronicling sulfur compounds in parcels of air before, during and after cloud formation. Inside clouds,
sulfur dioxide is oxidized to form sulfate. This occurs via two chemical paths. One is catalyzed with hydrogen peroxide and
ozone, and it's the process that figures heavily in most climate models. But there is a more common oxidation path,
scientists found: That reaction is aided by “transition metal ions” -- bits of iron, manganese, titanium and such -- that come from mineral
dust particles, where water gathers in early cloud formation. The sulfates catalyzed through these metal ions tend to form on
large, coarse grains of metallic dust, and because of their size, they fall out of the cloud at a faster rate than finer sulfates.
So the time they’re suspended in the atmosphere, and reflecting sunlight, is briefer than previously thought, the
researchers found. In places such as China and India, where sulfur dioxide emissions are rising and there is more mineral dust in the air, the
precipitation effect could have a significant impact. “Future aerosol cooling may be strongly overpredicted by current climate chemistry
models,” the authors suggest.
Exts OTEC Solves
OTEC slows warming- stores heat in the deep ocean which creates a cooling effect
Baird 13 Jim Baird is a contributor to the Energy Collective, an energy and environment think tank, “OTEC Can
Be a Big Global Climate Influence”, The Energy Collective, 9/3/13, http://theenergycollective.com/jimbaird/267576/otec-can-be-big-global-climate-influence//OF
Professor James Moum, physical oceanography, Oregon State University, commenting in LiveScience on the recently published study in the
journal Nature Recent global-warming hiatus tied to equatorial Pacific surface cooling by Yu Kosaka & Shang-Ping Xie said, “Scientists have
known that the eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean takes in a significant amount of heat from the atmosphere , but this
new study suggests this small portion of the world's oceans could have a big influence on global climate .” As shown in the
following diagram, this is the same area, which covers only about 8 percent of the globe's surface, with the greatest difference between surface
water temperatures and those at a depth of 1000 meters and accordingly it is the best area for producing power by the process of ocean
thermal energy conversion or (OTEC), which could replicate the surface cooling effect identified in the study that has caused the so
called global warming hiatus of the past 15 years. According to the forthcoming U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, the
measured rate of warming during the past 15 years was about 0.09°F per decade, which is a decline of over 40 percent from the 1901-2012
average which saw the planet warm by 1.6°F or .145°F per decade. Since carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere have increased from
370 ppm to 400 ppm during the same period, the so called global warming hiatus has been seized on by climate change skeptics as evidence
the climate system is less sensitive to increasing amounts of greenhouse gases than previously was thought. Xie said in the LiveScience piece,
"In our model, we were able to show two forces: anthropogenic forces to raise global average temperature, and equatorial Pacific cooling,
which tries to pull the temperature curve down, almost like in equilibrium," The effect is similar to the El Niño and La Niña cycles, which are
parts of a natural oscillation in the ocean-atmosphere system that occur every three to four years, and can impact global weather and climate
conditions, Xie explained. El Niño is characterized by warmer-than-average temperatures in the waters of the equatorial Pacific Ocean, while La
Niña typically features colder-than-average waters. While global surface temperatures have not warmed significantly since 1998, other studies
have shown that Earth's climate system continues to warm, with emerging evidence indicating that the deep oceans may be taking up much of
the extra heat. The following diagrams is from a paper World ocean heat content and thermosteric sea level change (0 – 2000 m), 1955 – 2010
by S. Levitus et al. The study estimates the 0 – 2000 meter layer of the World Oceans have warmed 0.09 C and if all of that heat was instantly
transferred to the lower 10 km of the global atmosphere it would result in a volume mean warming of 36 C. Conversely a significant
amount of surface heat can be moved to the deeper ocean with OTEC without causing an undue increase in the
temperature of the deep water. Kevin Trenberth and colleagues at the National Center for Atmospheric Research reanalyzed ocean
temperature records between 1958 and 2009 and found that about 30 percent of the extra heat has been absorbed by the oceans and mixed
by winds and currents to a depth below about 2,300 feet. Oceans are well-known to absorb more than 90 percent of the excess heat attributed
to climate change, but its presence in the deep ocean "is fairly new, it is not there throughout the record," Trenberth said during a
teleconference with NBC reporters in April. To find out why, Trenberth’s team used a model that accounts for variables including ocean
temperature, surface evaporation, salinity, winds and currents, and tweaked the variables to determine what causes the warming at depth. "It
turns out there is a spectacular change in the surface winds which then get reflected in changing ocean currents that help to carry some of the
warmer water down to this greater depth," Trenberth said. "This is especially true in the tropical Pacific Ocean and subtropics." The change in
winds and currents, he added, appears related to a pattern of climate variability called the Pacific Decadal Oscillation which in turn is related to
the frequency and intensity of the El Niño/La Niña phenomenon, which impacts weather patterns around the world. The oscillation shifted
from a positive stage to a negative stage at the end of the extraordinarily large El Niño in 1997 and 1998. The negative stage of the oscillation is
associated more with La Niñas, which is when the tropical Pacific Ocean is cooler and absorbs heat more readily, Trenberth explained. "So,
some of this heat may come back in the next El Niño event … but some of it is probably contributing to the warming of the overall planet, the
warming of the oceans. … It means that the planet is really warming up faster than we might have otherwise expected," he said. Even with this
slowed rate of warming, the first decade of the 21st century was still the warmest decade since instrumental records began in 1850. Susan
Solomon, a climate scientist at MIT, commenting on the Kosaka/Xie study said with respect to the prospect of less future warming due to lower
climate sensitivity to greenhouse gases, “this is the least consistent prospect with observations, not just of the past decade, but the previous 40
years." OTEC uses the temperature difference between cooler deep and warmer surface ocean waters to run a heat
engine and produce useful work, usually in the form of electricity. It too can have a big influence on global climate because it
converts part of the accumulating ocean heat to work and about twenty times more heat is moved to the depths in a similar fashion to how
Trenberth suggests the global-warming hiatus has come about. The more energy produced by OTEC – done properly the potential is 30
terawatts - the more the entire ocean will be cooled and that heat converted to work will not return as will be the case when the
oceans stop soaking up global-warming’s excess. Kevin Trenberth estimates the oceans will eat global warming for the next 20 years. Asked if
the oceans will come to our climate rescue he said, “That’s a good question, and the answer is maybe partly yes, but maybe partly no.” The
oceans can at times soak up a lot of heat. Some goes into the deep oceans where it can stay for centuries. But heat absorbed closer to the
surface can easily flow back into the air. That happened in 1998, which made it one of the hottest years on record. Since then, the ocean has
mostly been back in one of its soaking-up modes. “They probably can’t go for much longer than maybe 20 years, and what happens at the end
of these hiatus periods, is suddenly there’s a big jump [in temperature] up to a whole new level and you never go back to that previous level
again,” Trenberth says. The bottom line is global-warming needs to be put on a permanent hiatus and the world needs more zero emissions
energy. OTEC provides both.
Water
1AC Water
Water shocks coming- underground reserves are depleting
Goldenberg 14(Suzanne Goldenberg is the US environment correspondent of the Guardian “Why global water
shortages pose threat of terror and war” 2/8/14 http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/feb/09/globalwater-shortages-threat-terror-war accessed 7/8/14 AZ)
There are other shock moments ahead – and not just for California – in a world where water is increasingly in short
supply because of growing demands from agriculture, an expanding population, energy production and climate
change.¶ Already a billion people, or one in seven people on the planet, lack access to safe drinking water. Britain, of
course, is currently at the other extreme. Great swaths of the country are drowning in misery, after a series of Atlantic storms off the southwestern coast. But that too is part of the picture that has been coming into sharper focus over 12 years of the Grace satellite record. Countries
at northern latitudes and in the tropics are getting wetter. But those countries at mid-latitude are running increasingly low on
water.¶ "What we see is very much a picture of the wet areas of the Earth getting wetter," Famiglietti said. "Those
would be the high latitudes like the Arctic and the lower latitudes like the tropics. The middle latitudes in between ,
those are already the arid and semi-arid parts of the world and they are getting drier."¶ On the satellite images the biggest losses were
denoted by red hotspots, he said. And those red spots largely matched the locations of groundwater reserves.¶ "Almost all of those red
hotspots correspond to major aquifers of the world. What Grace shows us is that groundwater depletion is happening at a very
rapid rate in almost all of the major aquifers in the arid and semi-arid parts of the world."¶ The Middle East, north
Africa and south Asia are all projected to experience water shortages over the coming years because of decades of
bad management and overuse.¶ Watering crops, slaking thirst in expanding cities, cooling power plants, fracking
oil and gas wells – all take water from the same diminishing supply. Add to that climate change – which is
projected to intensify dry spells in the coming years – and the world is going to be forced to think a lot more about water than it
ever did before.
Desalination can alleviate scarcity, but conventional energy sources are insufficient--OTEC is key to make it viable on a larger scale
Shylesh Muralidharan 12, Former manager of Global Smart Energy Services at Capgemini Consulting, B.Tech
in Mechanical Engineering from Pondicherry University and Master of Mgmt Studies from the University of
Mumbai, Feb 2012, “Assessment of Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion,”
http://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/76927/824363276.pdf?sequence=1
In 2011, the increase in population to more than 7 billion translated into double the water consumption in the last
half century and between 1970 and 1990, per capital of available water decreased by a third. An increasing demand for water for
drinking water supplies, sanitation, agriculture, energy production and generation, mining and industry is expected
to compete for a limited supply of fresh water. By 2025, more than half the nations in the world will face freshwater stress or
shortages and by 2050 as much as 75% of the world’s population could face freshwater scarcity [6]. Regions with intensive
agriculture and dense population as the Asia, Africa and the US have high threat to water security. According to the US Natural Resources
Defense Council[33], more than one-third of all counties in the lower 48 states of the US will likely be facing very serious water shortages by
2050.¶ Though water is a renewable resource, only 2.5% of earth’s water is potable, and almost two-thirds of that is locked
up in glaciers and permanent snow cover. The Earth has a limited supply of fresh water in the form of aquifers, surface
waters and the atmosphere. Oceans are an abundant supply of water but the amount of energy needed to convert
seawater to water for human use is expensive today, explaining why only a very small fraction of the world’s water
supply derives from desalination27.¶ 5.1.Introduction to seawater desalination¶ The most popular desalination technologies used on
seawater an industrial scale are:¶ Multi-stage flash (MSF)¶ Multiple Effect distillation (MED)¶ Mechanical Vapor Compression (MVC)¶ Reverse
Osmosis (RO)¶ Of all the above technologies, MSF was the most prevalent method used for desalination but in recent years RO has been
catching up because of its ability to scale-up modularly for large capacities. Studies have estimated the typical capacities and corresponding
costs for the various technologies [34].¶ Though the installation of MSF reduced in the previous decades and RO has begun to compete in
seawater desalination markets, MSF still is preferred over RO due to reliability of the plants, ease of operation and very low degradation of
performance over a long duration of the life of the facility[35]. As the MSF technology for desalination is very expensive compared to other
technologies, it primarily has been popular in regions such as the middle-east where the cost of energy for the process is really
low. The limited diffusion of MSF in the recent years has been due to challenges in installing a source of electricity supply
at the site of freshwater production, including the logistics of managing two separate plants and the environmentally
impact of fossil fuels used in these plants [36].¶ To reduce the carbon impact of the process, there has been an interest in recent
years, either to reduce energy requirements for desalination or to replace conventional energy sources with
renewable ones [37]. Though these methods have been recommended for remote, arid and island settings, the
high-cost of installing conventional renewables usually leads to unfavorable economics of the technology. ¶ OTEC
can step in as the technology which can provide integrated clean and sustainable solutions with large-scale
desalination options with electricity generation catering to small- and medium-sized communities which are both energyand water-constrained.
OTEC can alleviate water scarcity globally
Muralidharan 12(Shylesh Muralidharan B. Tech. Mechanical Engineering, Pondicherry University, Master of
Management Studies at University of Mumbai. Written for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology “Assessment
of Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion” pg.78
http://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/76927/824363276.pdf?sequence=1 accessed 7/8/14 AZ)
The discussion of water scarcity indices is useful when identifying new markets for OTEC plants. Several countries in
the original list of ninety-eight countries[19] which are within the OTEC resource belt are developing nations where setting up
a capital-intensive base load electricity generation option might be a difficult economic imperative . But these countries
can consider capital investment if they are able to extract more value from the OTEC investment in¶ addition to generation of electricity. Hence
the water scarcity indices might help narrow down a list of countries which are in the OTEC zone and have a problem
of water scarcity in addition to constraints in electricity generation. ¶ When the global plots of water stress and the
OTEC-friendly resource regions are mapped over one another , the following regions can be short-listed as potential
locations for co-production of¶ electricity and fresh water: * East coast of Mexico adjoining the Gulf of Mexico including
some of the islands to the east of Mexico, the southwest coastal regions of Mexico along the Gulf of California.¶ " Coastal regions in
the Caribbean Sea along the countries of Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Dominican Republic and
Puerto Rico.¶ 74¶ " In the north Atlantic Ocean, the northern coast of Brazil and the northwestern African countries of Guinea, Sierra
Leone, Liberia¶ " Regions along the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal in the southern peninsula of India, Burma (Myanmar), Thailand
East coast of Africa in the states of Somalia, Tanzania and Mozambique and the island of Madagascar in the Indian Ocean.¶ Several of
these locations in the "overlapping" list are Developing/Small Island Nations across the world . For several island
nations across the world, water resources are quite restricted. This limits the economic development of the local
communities. Tropical islands that qualify with requisite OTEC temperature differential and depth criteria are excellent markets for
OTEC plants as this solution will meet their need for both base-load electric power and freshwater,. There are several
other islands which satisfy these criteria and are good candidates for co-locating the generation of both these essential utilities. This
technology has the potential to provide a solution for communities with increased potable water requirements
where desalination of existing aquifers cannot meet demand and the unviable economics prevent import of large
quantities from the nearest mainland.
Water shortages trigger international conflict- escalating to all-out war
Ramussen 11 (Erik Rasmussen is the founder of Sustainia and CEO of Monday Morning –- Scandinavia’s leading
independent think tank. “Prepare for the Next Conflict: Water Wars” 04/12/11
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/erik-rasmussen/water-wars_b_844101.html)
We are terrifyingly fast consuming one of the most important and perishable resources of the planet -- our water.
Global water use has tripled over the last 50 years. The World Bank reports that 80 countries now have water
shortages with more than 2.8 billion people living in areas of high water stress. This is expected to rise to 3.9 billion
-- more than half of the world's population -- by 2030 in a 'business as usual'-scenario. The status as of today is sobering:
the planet is facing a 'water bankruptcy' and we are facing a gloomy future where the fight for the 'blue gold' is king
.For years experts have set out warnings of how the earth will be affected by the water crises, with millions dying and increasing
conflicts over dwindling resources. They have proclaimed -- in line with the report from the US Senate -- that the water
scarcity is a security issue, and that it will yield political stress with a risk of international water wars. This has been
reflected in the oft-repeated observation that water will likely replace oil as a future cause of war between nations.¶ Today the
first glimpses of the coming water wars are emerging. Many countries in the Middle East, Africa, Central and South Asia -- e.g.
Afghanistan, Pakistan, China, Kenya, Egypt, and India -- are already feeling the direct consequences of the water
scarcity -- with the competition for water leading to social unrest, conflict and migration. This month the escalating
concerns about the possibility of water wars triggered calls by Zafar Adeel, chair of UN-Water, for the UN to promote
"hydro-diplomacy" in the Middle East and North Africa in order to avoid or at least manage emerging tensions over
access to water.¶ The gloomy outlook of our global fresh water resources points in the direction that the current
conflicts and instability in these countries are only glimpses of the water wars expected to unfold in the future. Thus
we need to address the water crisis that can quickly escalate and become a great humanitarian crisis and also a global safety problem.
Exts Scarcity UQ
Water shortages will come by 2030 threatening political stability and U.S. national
security
Patrick 12(Stewart Patrick is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and Director of the Program on
International Institutions and Global Governance. “The Coming Global Water Crisis” 5/9/12
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/05/the-coming-global-water-crisis/256896/ accessed
7/8/14 AZ)
The recent UN alert that drought in the Sahel threatens 15 million lives is a harbinger of things to come .¶ In the
next twenty years, global demand for fresh water will vastly outstrip reliable supply in many parts of the world.
Thanks to population growth and agricultural intensification, humanity is drawing more heavily than ever on
shared river basins and underground aquifers. Meanwhile, global warming is projected to exacerbate shortages in
already water-stressed regions, even as it accelerates the rapid melting of glaciers and snow cover upon which a billion people depend
for their ultimate source of water.¶ This sobering message emerges from the first U.S. Intelligence Community Assessment of Global Water
Security. The document predicts that by 2030 humanity's "annual global water requirements" will exceed "current
sustainable water supplies" by forty percent. Absent major policy interventions, water insecurity will generate
widespread social and political instability and could even contribute to state failure in regions important to U.S.
national security. (Look here for a webcast from the Woodrow Wilson Center of experts and U.S. government officials discussing the
findings.)
Exts OTEC -> Desal
OTEC plants desalinate water through the use of surface condensers
Vega and Michaelis 10 (Luis A. Vega, works for the National Marine Renewable Energy Center at the University of Hawaii,
Dominic Michaelis works for Energy Island Ltd. UK, this paper was presented at the Offshore Technology Conference in 2010, “First Generation
50 MW OTEC Plantship for the Production of Electricity and Desalinated Water” accessed 6/30/14 AZ
http://www.energyisland.com/assets/06_press/LVDM_50MWOTECPS.pdf)
Conceptual designs for 50 MW OTEC plants utilizing either closed cycle (CC) or open cycle (OC) technology are ¶
summarized herein. The CC-OTEC plant utilizes pressurized anhydrous ammonia as the working fluid to drive
turbinegenerators to produce electricity; and, the OC-OTEC plant makes use of low pressure steam generated in
flash evaporators to ¶ drive steam turbine generators to produce electricity and surface condensers for the
production of desalinated water.
OTEC produces desalinated water by evaporating warm seawater and condensing the
resulting clean vapor into desalinated water
Vega and Michaelis 10 (Luis A. Vega, works for the National Marine Renewable Energy Center at the University of Hawaii,
Dominic Michaelis works for Energy Island Ltd. UK, this paper was presented at the Offshore Technology Conference in 2010, “First Generation
50 MW OTEC Plantship for the Production of Electricity and Desalinated Water” accessed 6/30/14 AZ
http://www.energyisland.com/assets/06_press/LVDM_50MWOTECPS.pdf)
The plant is housed in a ship with the electricity ¶
transmitted to shore via a 13 cm submarine power cable and the desalinated water via a 110 cm diameter hose pipe. ¶ The
process can be described as follows. In a low-pressure vessel the warm seawater is partially flashed into steam (e.g., ¶ flashevaporator). The flash-evaporator units are connected to turbine-generators using the low-pressure steam as the ¶
working fluid. Subsequently, the wet steam exhaust enters the surface condensers, where the steam is converted into
¶ desalinated (fresh) water by exchanging heat with the cold seawater. The baseline 1.8 MW-gross submodule is depicted in ¶
A simplified block diagram of the OC-OTEC process is shown in Figure 2.
Figure 3. ¶ The heat and mass balance can be described using Figure 2 as reference and is summarized in Table 3. The 270,400 kg/sec of ¶
surface seawater are drawn into two sumps via 10 m inside-diameter (id) pipes from a depth of approximately 20m. ¶
The
seawater is sucked into the sumps by submersible pumps that supply the flow into the flash evaporators1 ¶ . Similarly,
¶
eep seawater are drawn into one sump via an 8.7 m id pipe from a depth of 1,000 m. The surface ¶ condensers
utilize 142,300 kg/s and in intercoolers, for the vacuum compressors, 4,500 kg/s. ¶ Uprisers take the warm seawater into the
evaporators. Predeaeration nozzles remove a portion of non-condensables from the ¶ warm water accumulated
below the spout plate. The warm seawater flashes through the spouts into the evaporation chamber ¶ at a pressure of
2.76 kPa. A small fraction (1,500 kg/s) of supply seawater is flashed into steam and the rest is discharged ¶ into the return
water sumps
¶ Steam from each evaporator enters the turbine at 2.74 kPa and leaves the turbine diffuser system
at 1.29 kPa. Each turbinegenerator (TG) unit gives a gross output of 1.8 MW for a total of 16.2 MW per module. Each unit comprises a single
stage, ¶ single flow, condensing, axial flow, reaction turbine coupled to a synchronous generator. Nine axial turbine units would be ¶ used per 10
MW-net module. Using this turbine, a so-called ‘telephone’ configuration imposes itself, where evaporator and ¶ condenser are well separated,
and are only connected through the turbine. ¶ Steam exhausted from the turbine-diffusers (98% quality) enters the surface condenser.
Approximately 99% of the steam ¶ (1,485 kg/s) is condensed into desalinated water. The remaining vapor along with
the non-condensable gases are evacuated ¶ by the vacuum compressor system. ¶ During this process, dissolved
gases, mainly nitrogen and oxygen, are released from the warm seawater when pressures as ¶ low as 2 % of atmospheric
pressure are reached. These non-condensable gases must be evacuated continuously by vacuum ¶ compressors to
prevent accumulation and sustain the required low operating pressures. Non-condensables also adversely ¶ affect condensation
performance through a blanketing effect at the heat exchanger walls. To reduce the impact released noncondensable gases, a predeaeration chamber at about 17 kPa is installed below the flashing chamber, so that about 50% ¶ outgassing occurs
before steam generation, and at a higher pressure more suitable for compression. ¶ Non-condensables and vapor from the
condensers enter the vacuum compressor system through a counter-current direct ¶ contact precooler. The precooler receives 4.
seawater and ensures that the mixture temperature at the first stage inlet ¶
vapor is condensed till its partial pressure becomes equal to ¶
C. The basic compressor system has four
stages with intercoolers in-between. The ¶ fourth stage compressor takes the no-condensables from warm water predeaeration in addition to
the non-condensables from ¶ the third stage. The discharge from the fourth stage is re-injected at 30 kPa into the warm water effluent piping. A
fifth stage ¶ compressor could also be provided to bypass the re-injection scheme and discharge into the atmosphere. The fifth stage ¶ would
red for the other stages. The first four stages are centrifugal ¶ whereas the fifth stage would be
positive displacement type. All coolers should be of the direct contact type. ¶ 1¶ There are a total of forty-five (45) flash evaporators, turbine
generators and surface condensers and nine (9) each per module. 58 OTC 20957 ¶ The net power from the system, after subtracting seawater
pumping, vacuum compressors pumping and desalinated water ¶ pumping is approximately 51 MW. The total desalinated water
produced is 1485 kg/s. Therefore, with a capacity factor of ¶ about 92%, annual outputs ought to be 414,400 MWh
and the equivalent of 118,400 m3¶ /day for electricity and desalinated ¶ water respectively. These values are estimated
onboard ship and do not account for losses related to transmission to the ¶ onshore station.
Desalinated water can be used for agriculture and marine organism life
Pelc and Fujita 02(Robin Pelc, Rodney M. Fujita. Fujita received his Ph.D. in marine ecology from the Boston University Marine
Program, Robin Pelc is an independent researcher and is affiliated with the University of California Santa Barbara 7/6/2002 “Renewable energy
from the ocean” http://www.ewp.rpi.edu/hartford/~ernesto/S2013/ET/MaterialsforStudents/Ott/Wave%20Energy%20SourcesOtt/Wave%20Zones%20and%20Locations/Renewable%20energy%20from%20the%20ocean.pdf accessed 7/1/14 AZ)
It is possible to derive ancillary benefits from both the¶ warm and cold water cycled through OTEC plants.In¶ an
open-cycle plant, the warm water, after being¶ vaporized, can be recondensed while keeping separated¶ from the cold seawater,
leaving behind the salt and¶ providing a source of desalinated water fresh enough for ¶ municipal or agricultural
use.The cold-water effluent¶ can be applied to mariculture (the cultivation of marine¶ organisms such as algae, fish,
and shellfish), air¶ conditioning and other applications.At the National¶ Energy Laboratory of Hawaii (NELHA), once the locus¶ of OTEC research and pilot programs, there are
no¶ longer any functioning, net energy-producing OTEC¶ plants, but research into uses for deep seawater pumped¶ to the surface using OTEC technology continues.¶ Cold, deep seawater brought
up by OTEC pipes is¶ nutrient-rich-parasite and free, and can be pumped into ¶ onshore ponds producing algae or
other products in a¶ controlled system [6].At NELHA, private companies¶ have already profited from raising lobsters,
flounder,¶ and high-protein algae in mariculture ponds fed by the¶ cold water.Additionally, this cold water has been used¶
to grow temperate crops such as strawberries in¶ Hawaii’s tropical climate [7].Air conditioning and¶ industrial cooling may be the most lucrative of all¶ ancillary benefits of OTEC
plants.Currently, both of¶ the two main buildings at the NELHA lab are effectively¶ air conditioned by cold seawater pumped through¶ OTEC pipes [8].
OTEC can produce fresh water necessary to aid drought stricken areas, for every
megawatt of power generated nearly 2.28 million liters of desalinated water is made
Magesh 10 (R. Magesh works for the National Institute of Government Technology in India
“OTEC Technology- A World of Clean Energy and Water” Proceedings of the World Congress on
Engineering 2010 Vol II WCE 2010, June 30 - July 2, 2010, London, U.K.
http://www.iaeng.org/publication/WCE2010/WCE2010_pp1618-1623.pdf)
Scientists all over the world are making ¶ predictions about the ill effects of Global warming and its ¶ consequences
on the mankind. Conventional Fuel Fired Electric ¶ Power Stations contribute nearly 21.3% of the Global Green ¶
House Gas emission annually. Hence, an alternative for such ¶ Power Stations is a must to prevent global warming. One fine ¶
alternative that comes to the rescue is the Ocean thermal energy ¶ conversion (OTEC) Power Plant, the complete
Renewable Energy ¶ Power Station for obtaining Cleaner and Greener Power. Even ¶ though the concept is simple and old, recently it has gained
¶ momentum due to worldwide search for clean continuous energy ¶ sources to replace the fossil fuels. The design of a 5 Megawatt ¶
OTEC Pre-commercial plant is clearly portrayed to brief the ¶ OTEC technical feasibility along with economic
consideration ¶ studies for installing OTEC across the world. OTEC plant can be ¶ seen as a combined Power Plant and
Desalination plant. ¶ Practically, for every Megawatt of power generated by hybrid ¶ OTEC plant, nearly 2.28 million
litres of desalinated water is ¶ obtained every day. Its value is thus increased because many ¶ parts of the globe are
facing absolute water scarcity. OTEC could ¶ produce enough drinking water to ease the crisis drought-stricken ¶
areas. The water can be used for local agriculture and industry, ¶ any excess water being given or sold to neighboring
communities
OTEC desalinated water can be used for consumption and agriculture- its competitive
with reverse osmosis and can readily produce over 1 million gallons a day
Sterrett 95 (Frances S. Sterrett Ph.D. (University of Vienna, Austria) is Professor ... She is
presently teaching Environmental Chemistry and Environmental Science, writes for the Journal
of Chemical Education1995 “Alternative Fuels and the Environment” Pg.14
http://books.google.com/books?id=jFvrF4DaZcgC&pg=PA14&lpg=PA14&dq=OTEC+freshwater&
source=bl&ots=_y8P6yW1o0&sig=OzYXQMT2lirQztQ9modmcJOq88w&hl=en&sa=X&ei=uqK0U7
G4IKqN8QHKiYHwAw&ved=0CH4Q6AEwDg#v=onepage&q=OTEC%20freshwater&f=false
Accessed 7/2/14 AZ)
The condensate of the open-cycle and hybrid OTEC systems is desalinated water, suitable for human consumption
and agricultural purposes. This water is actually more pure (less saline) than the water provided by the municipal
water system in Honolulu. The market value of desalinated water in the Pacific Islands ranges from $1 to $4.60 per kilogallon and may be
even higher in locations with no groundwater resources. A 1-MWe plant can readily produce over 1 million gallons of fresh
water per day. Calculations indicate that OTEC freshwater production costs are competitive with reverse osmosis.
AIR CONDITIONING The cold water discharge temperature from an OTEC plan can be between 10 and 16C, depending upon electrical energy and
freshwater production. Typical temperatures in the chillers of air conditions are between 7 and 14C. Thus, even after electrical energy production
and freshwater production, a sufficient temperature differential remains to provide air conditioning potential. If a slipstream (less than 3%)of
cold seawater (at 4.5C) for a 1-MWe plant was diverted for air conditioning, some 300 hotel rooms could be cooled at less than 25% of the cost
of a conventional system. NUTRIENTS Early OTEC experiments drew on the deep ocean water as a key element of the energy
system. However, enterprising scientists quickly found other applications for this water, which is relatively pathogen-free
and has high concentrations of nitrates, phosphates, and silicates (i.e, nutrients that foster the growth of plants and
algae). The site for the initial experiments and eventual commercial development has been NELH, located on the western shoreline of the Big
Island of Hawaii. Experiments on the land-based cultivation of marine organisms at NELH have blossomed into major businesses and fledging new
enterprises, many still in the research and development stage. These applications for the cold seawater can play a key role in improving the
economic appeal of the total OTWC system. Commercial enterprises are currently growing salmon, trout, opihi, oysters,
lobsters, sea urchins, abalone, kelp, nori, and other macro and micro algae. While the ultimate commercial viability of these
product lines is yet to be proven, their promise is significant.
A 1MW OTEC plant can produce 3 million worth of desalinated water a year- perfect
for crop irrigation and ag production
Bregman, Knapp and Takahashi 95(Ron Bregman Researcher at Hawaii Natural Energy Institute and
Engineer at McDonnell Douglas Aerospace Corporation UCLA engineering degree, R.H. Knapp is a professor of Mechanical Engineering at the
University of Hawaii, and P.K. Takahashi has a PhD in chemical engineering from Louisiana State University, paper from the University of Hawaii
Design considerations for ocean energy resource systems," OCEANS '95. MTS/IEEE. Challenges of Our Changing Global Environment.
Conference Proceedings. , vol.2, no., pp.1084,1091 vol.2, 9-12 Oct 1995 http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=528577
accessed 7/2/14 AZ)
The desalinated water produced by open-cycle ¶ and hybrid-cycle OTEC systems is actually less ¶ saline than the
water provided by most municipal ¶ water systems. Estimates indicate a 1 MW plant ¶ fitted with a second stage
fresh water production unit ¶ could supply approximately 55 kilograms/second of ¶ fresh water (4,750 m3/day),
sufficient for a ¶ population of 20,000 people. Fresh water production ¶ from reverse osmosis and multi-stage flash ¶ desalination
plants costs between $1.30 and ¶ $2.00/m3 for a plant with a 4,000 m3/day capacity. ¶ Using these figures, a 1 MW OTEC plant could ¶
produce almost $3 million worth of desalinated water ¶ per year. In addition to potable, fresh water for ¶ domestic
use, desalinated water from OTEC can be ¶ used for crop irrigation to increase agricultural ¶ production.
Exts Water Impact
Water would be used as a tool for terrorism
Chellaney 13(Brahma Chellaney is a geostrategist and the author of “Water, Peace, and War”. Her article “The Coming
Water Wars” was written in 2013 for the Washington times. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/oct/8/the-comingwater-wars/?page=all accessed 7/6/14 AZ)
As competition for the precious resource grows, water will be a key to war and peace ¶ In an increasingly waterstressed world, shared water resources are becoming an instrument of power, fostering competition within and
between nations. The struggle for water is escalating political tensions and exacerbating impacts on ecosystems . The
Budapest World Water Summit, which opens Tuesday, is the latest initiative to search for ways to mitigate the pressing challenges.¶ Consider
some sobering facts: Bottled water at the grocery store is already more expensive than crude oil on the spot market.
More people today own or use a mobile phone than have access to water-sanitation services.¶ Unclean water is the
greatest killer on the globe, yet one-fifth of humankind still lacks easy access to potable water. More than half of the
global population currently lives under water stress — a figure projected to increase to two-thirds during the next
decade.¶ Adequate access to natural resources, historically, has been a key factor in peace and war. Water, however, is very different from
other natural resources. A person can live without love, but not without water. ¶ There are substitutes for a number of
resources, including oil, but none for water. Countries can import, even from distant lands, fossil fuels, mineral ores
and resources originating in the biosphere, such as fish and timber. However, they cannot import the most vital of
all resources, water — certainly not in a major or sustainable manner. Water is essentially local and very expensive
to ship across seas.¶ Scarce water resources generate conflict. After all, the origin of the word “rival” is tied to water competition.
It comes from the Latin word, “rivalis,” or one who uses the same stream.¶ The paradox of water is that it is a life preserver, but it
can also be a life destroyer when it becomes a carrier of deadly bacteria or takes the form of tsunamis, flash floods,
storms and hurricanes. Many of the greatest natural disasters of our time have been water-related. One recent example
is the Fukushima disaster in Japan, which triggered a triple nuclear meltdown. ¶ If climate change causes oceans to rise and the
intensity and frequency of storms and other extreme weather events to increase, potable water would come under
increasing strain.¶ Rapid economic and demographic expansion has already turned potable water into a major issue
across large parts of the world. It is against this background that water wars in a political and economic sense are
already being waged between competing states in several regions, including by building dams on international rivers
or, if the country is located downstream, by resorting to coercive diplomacy to prevent such construction. U.S.
intelligence has warned that such water conflicts could turn into real wars.¶ According to a report reflecting the joint
judgment of U.S. intelligence agencies, the use of water as a weapon of war or a tool of terrorism could become
more likely in the next decade in some regions. The InterAction Council, comprising more than 30 former heads of state or
government, meanwhile, has called for urgent action, saying some countries battling severe water shortages risk failure. The State
Department, for its part, has upgraded water to “a central U.S. foreign-policy concern.”¶ Water stress is imposing
mounting socioeconomic costs. For example, commercial or state decisions in many countries on where to set up
new manufacturing or energy plants are increasingly being constrained by inadequate local water availability. ¶ The
World Bank has estimated the economic cost of China’s water problems at 2.3 percent of its gross domestic product. China, however, is not as
yet under water stress — a term internationally defined as the availability of less than 1,700 cubic meters of water per person per year. The
already water-stressed economies, stretching from South Korea and India to Egypt and Morocco, are paying a higher
price for their water problems.¶ Water is a renewable but finite resource. Nature’s fixed water-replenishment capacity limits the world’s
renewable freshwater resources to nearly 43,000 billion cubic meters per year. But the human population has almost doubled since
1970 alone, while the global economy has grown even faster.¶ Consumption growth has become the single biggest
driver of water stress. Rising incomes, for example, have promoted changing diets, especially a greater intake of meat, whose production is
notoriously water-intensive. For example, it’s about 10 times more water-intensive to produce beef than cereals.¶ In this light, water is
becoming the world’s next major security and economic challenge.¶ Although no modern war has been fought simply
over water, this resource has been an underlying factor in several armed conflicts. With the era of cheap, bountiful
water having been replaced by increasing supply and quality constraints, the risks of overt water wars are now
increasing.¶ Averting water wars demands rules-based cooperation, water sharing and dispute-settlement mechanisms. However, there is
still no international water law in force, and most of the regional water agreements are toothless, lacking monitoring
and enforcement rules and provisions formally dividing water among users. Worse still, unilateralist appropriation
of shared resources is endemic in the parched world, especially where despots rule.¶ The international community
thus confronts a problem more pressing than peak oil, economic slowdown and other oft-cited challenges.
Addressing this core problem indeed holds the key to dealing with other challenges because of water’s nexuses with
energy shortages, stresses on food supply, population pressures, pollution, environmental degradation, global
epidemics, climate change and natural disasters.
Water shortages threaten food and energy supplies – tensions will escalate to
terrorism and war
Goldenberg 14(Suzanne Goldenberg is the US environment correspondent of the Guardian “Why global water shortages
pose threat of terror and war” 2/8/14 http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/feb/09/global-water-shortages-threatterror-war accessed 7/8/14 AZ)
US security establishment is already warning of potential conflicts – including terror attacks – over water. In a 2012
report, the US director of national intelligence warned that overuse of water – as in India and other countries – was a
source of conflict that could potentially compromise US national security .¶ The report focused on water basins critical
to the US security regime – the Nile, Tigris-Euphrates, Mekong, Jordan, Indus, Brahmaputra and Amu Darya. It concluded:
"During the next 10 years, many countries important to the United States will experience water problems –
shortages, poor water quality, or floods – that will risk instability and state failure, increase regional tensions, and
distract them from working with the United States."¶ Water, on its own, was unlikely to bring down governments. But the
report warned that shortages could threaten food production and energy supply and put additional stress on
governments struggling with poverty and social tensions.¶ Some of those tensions are already apparent on the ground.
The Pacific Institute, which studies issues of water and global security, found a fourfold increase in violent
confrontations over water over the last decade. "I think the risk of conflicts over water is growing – not shrinking –
because of increased competition, because of bad management and , ultimately, because of the impacts of climate
change," said Peter Gleick, president of the Pacific Institute.¶ There are dozens of potential flashpoints, spanning the
globe. In the Middle East, Iranian officials are making contingency plans for water rationing in the greater Tehran
area, home to 22 million people.¶ Egypt has demanded Ethiopia stop construction of a mega-dam on the Nile,
vowing to protect its historical rights to the river at "any cost". The Egyptian authorities have called for a study into
whether the project would reduce the river's flow.¶ Jordan, which has the third lowest reserves in the region, is struggling with
an influx of Syrian refugees. The country is undergoing power cuts because of water shortages. Last week, Prince Hassan, the
uncle of King Abdullah, warned that a war over water and energy could be even bloodier than the Arab spring.¶ The
United Arab Emirates, faced with a growing population, has invested in desalination projects and is harvesting
rainwater. At an international water conference in Abu Dhabi last year, Crown Prince General Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed alNahyan said: "For us, water is [now] more important than oil."¶ The chances of countries going to war over water were
slim – at least over the next decade, the national intelligence report said. But it warned ominously: "As water shortages
become more acute beyond the next 10 years, water in shared basins will increasingly be used as leverage; the use
of water as a weapon or to further terrorist objectives will become more likely beyond 10 years. "¶ Gleick predicted
such conflicts would take other trajectories. He expected water tensions would erupt on a more local scale.¶ "I think the
biggest worry today is sub-national conflicts – conflicts between farmers and cities, between ethnic groups,
between pastoralists and farmers in Africa, between upstream users and downstream users on the same river,"
said Gleick.¶ "We have more tools at the international level to resolve disputes between nations. We have diplomats. We have
treaties. We have international organizations that reduce the risk that India and Pakistan will go to war over water but we have
far fewer tools at the sub-national level."
Water K2 Agriculture
Water security is vital to agricultural production
Brown 13 (Lester Brown is the president of the Earth Policy Institute earned masters degrees in agricultural
economics from the University of Maryland and in public administration from Harvard University. He wrote “The
real Threat to Our Future is Peak Water” on 6/6/13 for The Observer. Accessed
http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2013/jul/06/water-supplies-shrinking-threat-to-food 6/30/14
AZ)
Peak oil has generated headlines in recent years, but the real threat to our future is peak water. There are
substitutes for oil, but not for water. We can produce food without oil, but not without water.¶ We drink on
average four litres of water per day, in one form or another, but the food we eat each day requires 2,000 litres of
water to produce, or 500 times as much. Getting enough water to drink is relatively easy, but finding enough to
produce the ever-growing quantities of grain the world consumes is another matter.¶ Grain consumed directly
supplies nearly half of our calories. That consumed indirectly as meat, milk, and eggs supplies a large part of the
remainder. Today roughly 40% of the world grain harvest comes from irrigated land. It thus comes as no surprise
that irrigation expansion has played a central role in tripling the world grain harvest over the last six decades.
CPs
Europe CP
Doesn’t Solve OTEC
OTEC technologies are not available in Europe
EREC 13(European renewable Energy Council is the umbrella organisation of the major European renewable energy
industry, trade and research associations active in the field of photovoltaics, small hydropower, solar thermal, bioenergy,
geothermal, solar thermal electricity and ocean energy. It represents an industry with an annual economic activity of more than
€130 billion and more than 1 million employees. “Industry Vision Paper” 2013 http://www.erec.org/renewable-energy/oceanenergy.html accessed 7/7/14 AZ)
The ocean is an enormous source of renewable energy with the potential to satisfy an important percentage of the
European electricity supply. Conversion of the wave energy resource alone could supply a substantial part of the electricity demand of
several European countries, in particular Ireland, the UK, Denmark, Portugal, Spain and Norway, especially on islands and in remote areas. The
best ocean energy resources within the EU Member States are wave energy and marine currents, which have seen
the most technological development. Salinity gradient systems are being developed in Norway and the Netherlands. Ocean
Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) technologies are not yet available in Europe but can be harvested at latitudes
closer to the Equator with technologies developed by European companies. The technologies used to exploit the different
ocean resources (waves, tidal range, tidal stream/marine currents, salinity gradients and ocean thermal energy conversion) are quite diverse.
They can be categorised according to their basic principles of conversion.
Europe Fails
Europe has ineffective renewable technology policies
Razzouk 14(Assaad Razzouk is Group Chief Executive and Co-Founder of Sindicatum Sustainable Resources, a
Board member of the Association for Sustainable and Responsible Investment in Asia, and a Board member of the
Climate Markets & Investment Association. “Renewable energy targets are bad policy. Here are five reasons to
prove it” on 1/22/14 http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/renewable-energy-targets-are-bad-policyhere-are-five-reasons-to-prove-it-9078096.html accessed 7/6/14 AZ)
In its White Paper on a 2030 framework for climate and energy policies released today, the EU announced an overall target requiring renewable
energy to supply some 27 per cent of the EU's energy by 2030 but did not set country-specific targets.¶ This is being viewed as a
definitive sign that the EU is ditching its climate protection goals as well as losing its leadership role in climate
policies. ¶ In fact, the opposite is true. So long as the EU has a functioning emissions trading scheme and is serious about bold climate action,
renewable energy targets are bad policy for five reasons. ¶ First, it’s time for support to clean energy to mature into a support for innovation
and for up-and-coming technologies. Government support for renewable energy through the “20-20-20” climate and energy package has done
what it could: In Europe and elsewhere, if a higher carbon price is provided through tighter caps, zero rated renewable energy can already
compete and beat fossil fuel energy. Job done. Move on.¶ Second, in setting renewable energy targets, the EU is abandoning a
technology neutral stance and betting on specific technologies and industries. This is wrong. Government must be
technology neutral. It must set the rules and allow those who are better qualified to assess the risks and benefits
and invest accordingly. It is impossible to precisely predict how the energy sector is going to develop and
Governments must reject the impulse to do so. The Government’s role is to create a long term stable framework which is designed
to ensure that the precious commodity which clean air is has a price which increases in real terms over time. Only then will investors be able to
make a convincing case to their shareholders to invest in low carbon technology. Setting renewable energy targets undermines this
framework.¶ Third, while renewable energy targets have stimulated demand for clean power and caused the price of
production to come crashing down, they force energy generators to build capacity to meet targets, not to
maximize profit. They don’t help to build a competitive low carbon economy. If it’s more profitable to invest in
solar power in Spain and in wind power off the coast of the UK, then German, French and Italian money should
flow to these markets.¶ But arbitrary targets lead to renewable energy capacity being diverted to the wrong place
at the wrong time. If solar gives a better yield in Spain than in UK, what is the point of paying industry to install
solar panels in UK? If the UK has 40 per cent of Europe’s wind energy, why are we erecting wind turbines in Germany? A Europe-wide
efficient low carbon energy system will create jobs and build renewable energy capacity where it provides the highest returns, assessed as a
combination of electricity price and net carbon benefit and not as a combination of a power price and a compliance with a Government target.
¶ Fourth, Big Oil continues to invest billions in exploring and producing more gas because their shareholders demand
profits. As and when a properly functioning European emissions trading market imposes a strong and rising carbon
price which makes renewable energy more profitable, Big Oil will want to do what their shareholders tell them and
investments in fossil energy will decrease, dramatically and suddenly.¶ Renewable energy targets cannot deliver this result.
Who said the stone age didn’t end because it ran out stones? Our affair with fossil fuels won’t end because we ran
out of fossil fuels. It will run out because alternative sources of energy become more attractive and that will happen when they become
consistently cheaper.
Private Sector CP
No Solvency
Private sector cant solve- no incentive and too expensive
Pacific economic Cooperation council 12(PECC is a unique tripartite partnership of senior individuals from business
and industry, government, academic and other intellectual circles.
All participate in their private capacity and discuss freely on current, practical policy issues of the Asia Pacific region “Oceans as a Source of
renewable Energy” Renewable Energy, 50, 532-540, 3/26-28/12
https://www.pecc.org/images/stories/publications/2013_Marine_Resources/2013-marine-resources-Seminar2.pdf)
Following the tests completed in the late 20th century, which still define the state-of-the-art today, the responsibility of OTEC
technology development was implicitly handed to the private sector operating under open market mechanisms. As
a consequence, OTEC has not only failed to achieve market penetration anywhere, but the necessary
developmental steps that would allow commercial success have not been taken either. The relatively large size of
OTEC components and the demands imposed by the offshore environment on equipment survival and power
production logistics result in high projected capital costs. While substantial economies of scale are expected, the cost of OTEC
electricity generation has remained economically unattractive for smaller systems. Investors so far have not deemed
the risk of financing large OTEC projects acceptable without additional meaningful operational data. The dilemma
faced by OTEC developers is well illustrated in figure 5, based on a recent compilation of published updated Otec design cost estimates (Vega
2007) the amount of investment needed to deploy scalable floating pilot plants of 5 to 10MW is in the region of
US$200 million per plant. Hence, it is unlikely that private companies or consortia will undertake OTEC development
on their own. Instead, the publicly funded efforts initiated decades ago in the wake of sharp oil price increases, but later abandoned when
the economic and political contexts have been less favorable for renewable energy development, have yet to be completed. The fact that global
OTEC resourves generally are situated between 30N and 30S also suggests that wealthy and technologically developed economies have little
urgency promoting OTEC development. Yet, the same societal willpower is necessary that was successfully demonstrated in the past to launch
ambitious and challenging programs involving, for example, the nuclear and space technologies.
No private sector interest- OTEC lacks validation and costs are too high
Blanchard 12 (Whitney Blanchard is an Energy Specialist, contractor to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “Ocean
Thermal Energy Conversion Contribution to Energy” 2012 http://www.stakeholderforum.org/fileadmin/files/EnergyOTEC%20Contribution%20to%20Energy.pdf)
Despite ongoing efforts, OTEC has not yet been demonstrated at a commercial scale worldwide. The Ocean Renewable
Energy Coalition released a “U.S. Marine and Hydrokinetic Technology Roadmap” (OREC 2011) describing the issues for the industry and the
path to commercialization by 2030. While OTEC is not specifically mentioned as a marine and hydrokinetic technology, the
key factors to commercialization are the same: 1. Technology research and development 2. Policy issues 3. Siting
and permitting 4. Environmental research 5. Market development. 6. Economic and financial issues 7. Grid
integration 8. Education and workforce training. The roadmap suggests a phased approach to commercialization beginning with
demonstration and pilot projects which are pre-commercial and grid connected moving towards commercialization. OTEC has remained in
the demonstration phase. The onshore experimental in the 1990s produced 215 kilowatts of net energy (Vega 2002/2003), however,
commercial-scale facilities are designed at 100 megawatts (i.e., 100,000 kilowatts). There is a need of a pilot project to validate
OTEC technology developments. OTEC technology is feasible at this scale (e.g., less than 10 megawatts) using
current designs, materials, manufacturing, and deployment techniques; however, there is a need for further
research, development, testing and evaluation for the commercial-scale OTEC facility (CRRC 2009). OTEC designers,
future customers, financiers, and regulators need validation of the economic models, technical performance, and
environmental performance from a pilot plant prior to commercial scale development (Bedard R. 2010). The cost is
what remains a challenge; for example, the Lockheed Martin 10 megawatt pilot plant is estimated to cost $230$250 million (Lockheed 2011).
States CP
Fed Key---Jurisdiction
States can’t solve- jurisdiction is solely with the federal government
Kubiszewski 8 Dr. Ida Kubiszewski is a Senior Lecturer at the Crawford School of Public Policy at Australian
National University, “Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion Act of 1980, United States”, September 4th, 2008, The
Encyclopedia of Earth, http://www.eoearth.org/view/article/154988//OF
United States Congress passed the Ocean Thermal Energy Converstion Act of 1980 to promote the development of
ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC), an alternate source of energy with the potential to minimize dependence on foreign sources of oil.
The Act gave the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) the authority to license the construction,
ownership, location, and commercial operations of OTEC facilities. Under the Act, OTEC facilities are not required to obtain
leases or pay royalties to the federal government, a provision intended to encourage commercial development of the energy source.
NOAA has jurisdiction over all OTEC projects
Nic Lane 7, Analyst in Environment and Resources Management for the Congressional Research Service’s
Resources Science, and Industry Division, “Issues Affecting Tidal, Wave, and In-Stream Generation Projects,”
February 20, 2007, http://research.policyarchive.org/3144_Previous_Version_2007-02-20.pdf
Pursuant to the OTEC Act,63 the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) would be the lead agency
for licensing any proposed OTEC project. NOAA retains jurisdiction of OTEC projects on the OCS with passage of
EPACT §388. However, as noted above, OTEC projects are of limited commercial appeal in most U.S. waters, because OTEC requires site
conditions found only in tropical waters. Thus it is primarily of interest in Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and some U.S. territories.
States can’t solve – Energy Policy Act
Lane 7 , Nic Lane is an analyst in Environment and Resources Management, “Issues Affecting Tidal, Wave, and
In-Stream Generation Projects”, 2/20/2007, Congressional Research Service,
research.policyarchive.org/3144_Previous_Version_2007-02-20.pdf//OF
The development technology that generates electricity from ocean waves, tides, and river currents is still in its infancy. However,
Congress has provided some policy guidance on these energy sources through the Energy Policy Act of 2005 (EPACT; P.L. 10958). The act addresses this area of energy innovation by clarifying federal jurisdiction over, and encouraging the development of,
these alternative energy sources. Title II of the act contains provisions for assessment of and reports on renewable
energy resources by the Department of Energy; production incentives for renewable energy production ; benchmarks
for renewable energy purchases by federal facilities; and grants supporting rural electrification with preference given to renewable
energy facilities. EPACT §931 directs the Secretary of Energy to conduct research and development (R&D) programs for
ocean energy, including wave energy and kinetic hydro generation projects, and §388 amends §8 of the Outer Continental Shelf
Lands Act (43 U.S.C. §1337) to give authority to the Secretary of the Interior to grant leases on the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) for the
production of energy from sources other than oil and natural gas.
Fed Key---Outages
Federal oversight is key to dealing with outages – overarching guidelines are key
NASEO 13 The National Association of State Energy Officials is an organization that brings energy officials from
different states together to coordinate energy policies, “Strategies for States in Energy Assurance Planning:
Regional Coordination and Communication”, March 2013, NASEO.org,
https://www.naseo.org/data/sites/1/documents/publications/Energy-Assurance-Regional-Coordination.pdf//OF
For more than twenty years, the National Association of State Energy Officials (NASEO), U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE), and National
Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC) have worked collectively to encourage regional coordination
among states in planning, communication, information sharing, and coordination of activities before, during, and
after energy disruptions. In recent year the focus of this effort at DOE has been with Infrastructure Security and Energy
Restoration Division (ISER) of the DOE Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability that is responsible for both energy
emergency responses and recovery and for efforts in support of the protection and enhancing the resiliency of
critical energy infrastructure.
Hawaii Budget DA Link
Hawaii’s budget is tight – the CP will trade off
Khon News 4/29 Khon News is a local news organization in Hawaii, “Hawaii lawmakers approve $12B state
budget for FY2014-15”, 4/29/14, http://khon2.com/2014/04/29/hawaii-lawmakers-approve-state-budget-forfy2014-15//OF
The Hawaii State Legislature voted Tuesday to approve the state budget for the upcoming FY2014-2015. It now goes to
the governor for approval. The budget, which provides $6.189 billion in general funds and $12.147 billion in all means of
financing, was characterized by House Finance Chair Sylvia Luke as measured and prudent. “We’ve had to deal with a changing
financial landscape that clearly suggested a more measured and prudent approach to spending , especially when we
looked at our long-term obligations,” said Rep. Sylvia Luke (Makiki, Punchbowl, Nuuanu, Dowsett Highlands, Pacific Heights, Pauoa), one of the
budget’s chief architects. “I think we’ve done that while meeting the immediate needs of our people, including taking care of lowest wage
earners, our kupuna and our keiki. “We’ve also continued to recapitalize our budget reserves with at least $200 million this year, and
maintained significant financial contributions toward reducing our unfunded liabilities,” she added. HB1700 appropriates funds for operating
and capital improvement costs of the Executive Branch for the second half of the current biennium, FY2014-2015, including $10 million in
Grant-in-Aid (GIA) for nonprofit organizations who provide community services and over $2.3 billion in G.O. bond funding for capital
improvement projects (CIP), including monies for the new Kona Judiciary Building and the University of Hawaii at Hilo School of Pharmacy. “I
think part of the challenges that our finance chairs faced this year was the misconception that we had a huge
projected surplus to dole out, and the plain fact is that was just not true, ” said House Speaker Joseph M. Souki (Kahakuloa,
Waihee, Waiehu, Puuohala, Wailuku, Waikapu).
Hawaii Budget Impact---Investment
State spending causes tax hikes and drives away business which turns investor
confidence- kills solvency
Peek 11 Liz Peek is a former research analyst on Wall Street, and now writes for Fox News and the Fiscal Times,
“State Tax Burdens Slow Recovery, Deter Investment”, 1/20/11,
http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Columns/2011/01/19/State-Tax-Burdens-Slow-Recovery-Deter-Investment//OF
The most recent census data confirms that low tax states like Texas and Florida continue to exert a strong gravitational pull,
while high-tax locales like California and Massachusetts are driving people away. Overall, the census reports, the population
in the U.S. grew 9.7 percent in the past decade, the weakest gain in the past seventy years. It is likely that the regional shifts would have been
more pronounced but for the recession and accompanying collapse in the housing market. Unable to sell their homes, many Americans were
constrained from migrating to more promising locales. Still, the winners and losers are clear-cut. Which states beckon? There is a
demonstrable parallel between states cited for low tax or business-friendly policies by the Tax Foundation and those
whose populations grew in the past decade. For instance, Texas’ population grew by 21 percent, benefiting from both a rising
number of Hispanic immigrants and an inflow from elsewhere in the country. Texas has no personal income tax and ranks 13th in terms of
attractiveness to businesses. Florida, Washington and Nevada have no income tax; all three expanded more rapidly than the country as a whole
– by 18 percent, 14 percent and 35 percent respectively. Also appearing in the top five most attractive states in terms of individual income
taxes is Alaska, where the population increased 13.3 percent, putting to rest the notion that it’s all about warm weather. Similarly, South
Dakota favors its citizens with low taxes. Though that state only grew by 8 percent, nearby neighbor North Dakota attracted less than 5 percent
more residents in the past ten years. Of course, people move for a variety of reasons. Low personal or property taxes may attract self-employed
or retired people, but many younger folks travel in search of jobs. Thus, a state’s appeal to employers would also be expected to line up with
population shifts. The ten states ranked by the Tax Foundation as most attractive in terms of business tax climate are (in order)
South Dakota, Alaska, Wyoming, Nevada, Florida, Montana, New Hampshire, Delaware, Utah and Indiana.
Geographically diverse, all of those states grew at or above the national average except for South Dakota, New Hampshire (up 6.5 percent) and
Indiana (up 6.6 percent) In those latter cases, the states grew much ahead of their neighbors; New Hampshire outpaced Vermont and
Massachusetts (both up about 3 percent) while Indiana clearly outperformed Illinois, which grew at only 3.3 percent. Needless to say, there are
many variables which impact population growth. However, it would be hard to find a variable that determines success more
reliably than low tax rates. On the other side of the ledger, those who advocate high spending – for example on welfare
programs or housing assistance – will struggle to show that state-financed generosity attracts residents. That’s an issue for
another column, but I note that a CBS poll just released reports that 77 percent of all Americans want to cut spending to balance our country’s
budget; only 9 percent advocate raising taxes. In other words, a hefty majority agrees with Indiana governor Mitch Daniels, who famously says
“You’ll be surprised how much government you won’t miss.” The tough issue today is that many states have gotten themselves
into a deep hole and are faced with terrible choices. Raise taxes, and almost certainly scare away residents, or cut services.
While spending cuts are anathema to those closely allied with public employee unions, they are spreading as state
political leaders bow to the inevitable. The alternatives are just too risky. In Illinois, for instance, lawmakers just agreed to
raise taxes 67 percent to plug their budget hole. Does anyone want to guess what Illinois’ growth rate will look like in the next census?
Unbalanced budgets cause credit downgrades and collapse investor confidence –
Illinois proves
ABC 6/5 ABC news is a national news organization, “Credit Agency Warns of Budget's Downfalls”, 6/5/14, ABC
News, http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Awww.wics.com%2Fnews%2Ftopstories%2Fstories%2Fcredit-agency-warns-budgets-downfalls17552.shtml&rlz=1C1LENP_enUS471US471&oq=cache%3Awww.wics.com%2Fnews%2Ftopstories%2Fstories%2Fcredit-agency-warns-budgets-downfalls17552.shtml&aqs=chrome..69i57j69i58.1333j0j4&sourceid=chrome&es_sm=93&ie=UTF-8//OF
After much criticism on the state's impending budget, credit agencies are saying the spending plan passed by lawmakers
could put Illinois into even more financial trouble. Moody's Investors Service warned that the $35.6 billion budget,
which did not include an extension of the income tax increase, would undo the progress made to reduce the state's
backlog of unpaid bills. Estimates show that letting the income tax rate roll back from 5 percent to 3.75 percent would result
in the loss of nearly $2 billion in revenue. Kent Redfield, University of Illinois Springfield political science professor, explains what
could happen. "Investor confidence will go down, business confidence on the state will go down, other states will say
'why would you want to,'" Redfield said. "In Illinois, their credit rating continues to drop and drop, and voters are going
to find somebody to blame." Currently, Moody's rates Illinois at a "3" with a negative outlook. According to Redfield, the
impact of his budget will not be a problem in this coming year. But if the state fails to find other revenue sources, Illinois' credit will likely be
downgraded again.
Hawaii Budget Impact---Watersheds
The intact budget is key to watershed protection – key to biodiversity
DLNR 13 The Department of Land and Natural Resources in Hawaii, “STATE BUDGET FUNDS FOREST
WATERSHED PROTECTION – PRESS RELEASE”, 11/12/13, http://dlnr.hawaii.gov/rain/2013/11/12/state-budgetfunds-forest-watershed-protection//OF
“The Department of Land and Natural Resources Watershed Initiative remains a top priority and will continue to move
forward,”said Gov. Abercrombie. “Protecting our mauka forest areas, which contain native plants and animals found
nowhere else in the world, is essential to the future of agriculture, industry, and our environment in Hawaii. It is
the most cost-effective and efficient way to absorb rainwater and replenish groundwater resources to prevent
erosion that muddies our beaches and fisheries.” The state budget includes $3.5 million in general funds and $5
million in general obligation bond funding in fiscal year 2014 for watershed protection, as well as an additional $2.5 million in
bonds in fiscal year 2015.
Loss of biodiversity leads to zoonotic disease spread
Wood et al 12 James L. N. Wood is a scientist at the Disease Dynamics Unit at the university of Cambridge, “A
framework for the study of zoonotic disease emergence and its drivers: spillover of bat pathogens as a case study”,
9/10/12, The Royal Society of Biological sciences,
http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/367/1604/2881.full//OF
Many serious emerging zoonotic infections have recently arisen from bats, including Ebola, Marburg, SARS-coronavirus,
Hendra, Nipah, and a number of rabies and rabies-related viruses, consistent with the overall observation that wildlife are an
important source of emerging zoonoses for the human population. Mechanisms underlying the recognized association
between ecosystem health and human health remain poorly understood and responding appropriately to the ecological, social and economic
conditions that facilitate disease emergence and transmission represents a substantial societal challenge. In the context of disease
emergence from wildlife, wildlife and habitat should be conserved, which in turn will preserve vital ecosystem
structure and function, which has broader implications for human wellbeing and environmental sustainability,
while simultaneously minimizing the spillover of pathogens from wild animals into human beings. In this review, we
propose a novel framework for the holistic and interdisciplinary investigation of zoonotic disease emergence and its
drivers, using the spillover of bat pathogens as a case study . This study has been developed to gain a detailed interdisciplinary
understanding, and it combines cutting-edge perspectives from both natural and social sciences, linked to policy impacts on public health, land
use and conservation.
Zoonotic diseases become global pandemics- high magnitude
IRIN 12 IRIN is an international news agency funded by the United Nations, “HEALTH: Predicting the next
zoonotic pandemic”, 11/30/12, IRIN.com, http://www.irinnews.org/report/96934/health-predicting-the-nextzoonotic-pandemic//OF
LONDON, 30 November 2012 (IRIN) - Chances are high the world’s next pandemic will be a disease originating in animals,
like 60 percent of current documented human infectious diseases. Even after hundreds of thousands of human deaths from
zoonoses (diseases transmitted from animals to humans), experts say there is still limited information about how zoonoses are
spread or just how to predict the next outbreak. “There is no question of whether we will have another zoonotic
pandemic,” wrote Stephen Morse, a public health professor at Columbia University in New York, in a November 2012 series on zoonoses in
the UK medical journal, The Lancet. “The question is merely when, and where, the next pandemic will emerge.” Despite virus hunters’
best efforts, no zoonotic pandemic has, thus far, been predicted before it infected humans. “The continuing effect of the
HIV/AIDS pandemic is a reminder of the risk of zoonotic pathogens spreading from their natural reservoirs to man,” wrote William Karesh from
New York’s EcoHealth Alliance in the Lancet series. The NGO, formerly known as Wildlife Trust, works to prevent the outbreak of emerging
diseases by preserving biodiversity.
States Fail---Politics
CP can’t solve – republicans roll back renewable legislation – also kills the market
which means no spillover
Plumer 13 Brad Plumer is a reporter for the Washington Post, “The biggest fight over renewable energy is now
in the states”, 3/25/13, The Washington Post,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/03/25/the-biggest-fights-over-renewable-energy-arenow-happening-in-the-states//OF
Serious challenges to state laws. State renewable standards have faced the prospect of being weakened or repealed
outright in Ohio, Michigan, Kansas, Missouri, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Maryland, and Wisconsin,
among other places. For example, Kansas currently has a standard that requires utilities to get 20 percent of their electricity from sources
like wind by 2020. Recently, Republicans in the state legislature proposed a bill that would give power companies more
time to comply. Among other things, the lawmakers argued that electricity bills have surged 37 percent since 2008.
(The bill ultimately failed in committee.) In November, my colleague Juliet Eilperin reported that many of these repeal efforts were
being coordinated by the libertarian Heartland Institute and the conservative American Legislative Exchange Council.
ALEC has even crafted model legislation, the Electricity Freedom Act. Both groups argue that the renewable standards are
costly to consumers, since wind and solar are often more expensive than coal or natural gas. There's also fossil-fuel money
associated with these repeal efforts. "In many cases," Eilperin wrote, "the groups involved accept money from oil, gas and coal companies that
compete against renewable energy suppliers." Attempts to weaken renewable laws through a "hydro loophole." Trabish notes that hydroloophole fights have transpired in Washington, Oregon, Montana and Maine. This is a more subtle legislative maneuver to loosen the cleanenergy standards. Take Washington. The state already gets 66 percent of its electricity from hydropower. And, in 2006, voters approved a law
requiring utilities to get an additional 15 percent of electricity from new renewable sources. But one Republican lawmaker is now pushing a
modification that would allow utilities to satisfy the requirement through existing hydropower — a tweak that would significantly curtail the
impact of the original law. While this hydropower tweak is unlikely to pass in Washington, a similar bill just passed the Montana state house,
and could reach the governor's desk for the second year in a row (it was vetoed by Democratic governor Brian Schweitzer last time around).
Legal challenges and other attacks. There's a lawsuit against Colorado's renewable standard (30 percent by 2020) charging that the rule violates
the Commerce Clause. Meanwhile, in New Hampshire, conservative lawmakers are trying to pull the state out of RGGI, the
regional cap-and-trade system for electric utilities, which could undermine the state's renewable market. You can read a
full list of the challenges in the GreentechMedia report here. It notes that renewable standards have largely been left alone in deep-blue states
such as California, New York, Illinois and New Jersey.
DAs
Environment DA
Link Defense
Monitoring and design considerations solve any potential environmental impacts—a
pilot OTEC plant allows future builders to assess environmental concerns before
implementation
Cohen 10 (Robert, specialist in Ocean thermal energy, “RESPONSE TO COMMENTS RE OCEAN THERMAL ENERGY
POSTED ON THE R-SQUARED ENERGY BLOG”, Energy Trends Insider 2/16/10,
http://www.energytrendsinsider.com/2010/02/22/answering-questions-on-otec-part-ii/, accessed 7/10/14, MB)
Since the operation of an ocean thermal plant requires the circulation through the plant of a veritable “river of water”, careful design
consideration must be given to minimizing effects on the local and downstream temperature distribution with
depth. Hence a lot will depend upon how the effluent seawater is discharged following passage of the warm and cold seawater inputs through
the evaporators and condensers. Fortunately there is a disincentive for the plant operator to perturb the pre-existing local
temperature distribution, since plant ECONOMICS are greatly improved by maintaining the largest practical
temperature difference between the warm seawater and the cold seawater at depth. ¶ Design of the discharge process—
i.e., how to discharge the cooled warm water and warmed cold water effluents—can be handled in various ways. For example, by
discharging the cooled warm water at a depth corresponding to its new temperature, and by discharging the
warmed cold water below the sunlight-affected (phototropic) zone, to prevent formation of algae blooms within
that nutrient-rich cold seawater. One of the functions of the pilot plant is to monitor the discharge
plumes, compare them to modeling predictions, and allow environmental scientists to assess how the plant
interacts with its surroundings.¶ During the heyday of the federal ocean thermal R&D program, in the 70s and early 80s (prior to
PUBLICconcerns about CO2), a key environmental goal of the federal R&D program on ocean thermal energy was to avoid perturbing the
thermal environment of the plant. Accordingly, contracts were awarded to groups at MIT and Cornell to conduct fluid-dynamical modeling
studies of water circulation.¶ Those studies led to another likely way of satisfactorily discharging the seawater effluents to avoid significantly
perturbing the thermal environment; namely, to mix the cooled warm water and warmed cold water effluents, then to discharge the mixture at
a depth within the thermocline where the ambient temperature matches the resulting temperature of the mixture.¶ In those modeling studies,
global warming and the fate of the CO2 dissolved in the upwelled cold water were not issues of significant concern. But
nowadays, avoiding liberation of CO2 to the atmosphere must also be a goal in plant operation, hence future modeling of seawater
circulation in connection with the design of ocean thermal plants and plantships will need to consider both
temperature and CO2 parameters.¶ Another important design factor in avoiding CO2 emissions is proper design and
operation of the ocean thermal power cycle. According to a study by Green and Guenther (1990), proper use of the “closed”
power cycle would probably suppress CO2 emissions, but if the “open” cycle is used to co-produce fresh water, special care must
be taken, in the course of degasifying the warm seawater, to avoid liberating CO2 to the atmosphere. It appears that most serious plant designs
for multi-megawatt offshore plants are choosing the closed cycle, because the turbines needed for open-cycle operations are too large for
those APPLICATIONS.¶ There is a conjectural possibility that ocean thermal plants and plantships could—in addition to their normal
operation, and for a fee—take on the additional task, if feasible, of removing CO2 from the atmosphere and sequestering
it in the deep ocean. But the incremental cost of achieving such sequestration would have to be considered and internalized into the plant
ECONOMICS.¶ Accordingly, one can safely make the qualified assertion that, when and if deep-sea sequestration of CO2 extracted from the
atmosphere becomes technically and economically viable, then fleets of ocean thermal plants and plantships will be well-positioned for
conducting that additional function, assuming that the incremental cost of doing so can be dealt with. If such sequestration were to become a
realistic option, then ocean thermal technology may be in a position to win the Branson Virgin Earth Challenge Prize for removing CO2 from the
atmosphere.¶ There has long been interest in using for mariculture (of plants or animals) the artificial, nutrient-laden, cold-water upwelling
associated with the operation of ocean thermal plants. Such mariculture would utilize for fertilizer the NUTRIENTS (phosphates, nitrates, and
CO2) dissolved in the upwelled cold water. But nowadays the potential viability of this co-product APPLICATION would need to be reexamined,
in view of the possibility that an open-ocean mariculture operation, as an adjunct to normal plant operation, could result in liberating some of
the CO2 contained in the cold water into the atmosphere. Furthermore, although kelp plants, for example, fare well in a cold-water
environment, conducting an open-ocean mariculture operation near the surface could result in reducing the temperature of the warm surface
water fueling the ocean thermal plant, hence make the two activities incompatible.¶ Besides the above thermal and CO2 considerations, there
are many other environmental aspects of operating ocean thermal plants and plantships. Numerous studies have been conducted
regarding possible environmental impacts of ocean thermal power plants, such as: impingement and entrainment of marine
organisms; possible discharges of CO2, biocides, corrosion products and working fluids; and artificial reef, nesting, and migration aspects.
Those studies indicated that such potential impacts can be satisfactorily dealt with. For example, see a 1990
report by Green and Guenther, and a 1986 study report by Myers et al. The latter, conducted by researchers at NOAA and Argonne National
Laboratory for the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) of NOAA, is available at this URL.¶ Those studies probably need updating today, in
view of growing concerns about global warming. In particular, further R&D will be desirable on how to avoid liberating CO2 from ocean thermal
plants, and for modeling various environmental aspects of operating a fleet of ocean thermal power plants and plantships. ¶ Despite the
absence of updated studies in these areas, conjectures are being made, often without much basis, as to what environmental effects might
occur as a consequence of large-scale implementation of ocean thermal energy extraction. For example, forecasts are being made regarding
how much electrical power can ultimately be extracted from the vast available ocean thermal resource. It is my contention that—in the
absence of hard data resulting from significant operational experience with commercial ocean thermal plants—it is currently premature to
forecast likely environmental impacts or make valid quantitative forecasts of total recoverable power.¶ As DEPLOYMENT of this technology
proceeds, it will be important for the environmental community to develop the modeling tools needed to forecast
possible environmental effects. The adaptation of existing finite-element modeling tools is underway for applying
them to the pilot plant. As part of the procedures for satisfying the NOAA licensing requirements for siting, building, and operating the
pilot plant, there will probably be a year of preliminary environmental monitoring at the proposed site off Hawaii, followed by a
second year to validate those measurements, compare them with modeling results, and exclude any anomalies.
Modeling and monitoring of OTEC sites would minimize the plan’s impact on the
environment
Comfort and Vega 11 (Christina, GRADUATE DIVISION OF THE UNIVERSITY ¶ OF HAWAI`I OF MĀNOA, Luis,
Ph.D @ THE UNIVERSITY ¶ OF HAWAI`I, “Environmental Assessment of Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion in
Hawaii”, Environmental Assessment of Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion in Hawaii 2011,
http://hinmrec.hnei.hawaii.edu/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/Environmental-Assessment-of-OTEC-inHawaii1.pdf, accessed 7/9/14, MB)
Physical modeling of the OTEC plume has been accomplished, and the models should be run with the most up-to-date
engineering specifications when they are finalized. The available chemical and biological baseline data has been assembled, and
while there is generally a good understanding of the Hawaiian ecosystem, studies
directed specifically at OTEC will facilitate
a thorough environmental impact statement and allow researchers to more accurately predict
impacts on the ecosystem. Here, a protocol is proposed for creating a more complete environmental baseline.¶ After baseline
monitoring is complete and the first OTEC pilot plant is installed, ongoing monitoring will allow researchers to ascertain
the scale of environmental impacts. It will also allow engineers to make adjustments based on these impacts, as
necessary, for the design of a commercial scale plant. The operational environmental monitoring should include at
least the following:¶ • Continue to measure oceanographic parameters at sites that are near the plume outflows (about 100m) and
in the far-field (5km or more). If the plume signature cannot be detected by normal Niskin bottle sampling, autonomous gliders could be used
to search for the plume signature.¶ • Sample water moving through the system for entrained organisms and compare to
estimates based on MOCNESS data.¶ Continue monitoring noise levels and
determine if the vibrations produced may disrupt
animal behavior.¶ • Monitor nekton abundance near the site, using backscatter techniques or fishing.¶ • Record the organisms
impinged and frequency of impingement, and calculate biomass per day that is impinged.
Warming Turns the DA
It’s try or die—warming devastates marine ecosystems
Bruno 10 (John, MARINE ecologist; Associate Professor, UNC Chapel Hill, “The Impact of Climate Change on the
World's Marine Ecosystems”, HuffingtonPost.com 6/18/14, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-f-bruno/theimpact-of-climate-cha_b_616759.html#, accessed 7/9/14, MB)
The impacts of CLIMATE CHANGE on the world's oceans include decreased ocean productivity, altered food web
dynamics, reduced abundances of habitat-forming species, shifting species distributions, and a greater incidence of
disease. Further change will continue to create enormous challenges and costs for societies worldwide, particularly those in developing
countries.¶ ¶ Those are the primary conclusions of a review article published yesterday in SCIENCE by myself and my colleague, Professor Ove
Hoegh-Guldberg Director of The University of Queensland's Global Change Institute.¶ ¶ The article was a comprehensive synthesis on the
effects of CLIMATE CHANGE on the world's oceans. We concluded that man-made greenhouse gases are driving irreversible and
dramatic changes to the way the ocean functions, with potentially dire impacts for hundreds of millions of people across the
planet.¶ ¶ Professor Hoegh-Guldberg likes to point out that the ocean, which produces half of the oxygen we breathe and absorbs 30% of
human-generated CO2, is equivalent to the planets heart and lungs:¶ ¶ Quite plainly, the EARTH cannot do without its ocean. This
study, however, shows worrying signs of ill health. We are entering a period in which the very ocean services upon which humanity depends are
undergoing massive change and in some cases beginning to fail. Further degradation will continue to create enormous challenges and costs for
societies worldwide.¶ The "FUNDAMENTAL and comprehensive" changes to marine life identified in the report include
rapidly warming and acidifying oceans, changes in water circulation and expansion of dead zones within the ocean
depths.¶ ¶ These are driving major changes in MARINE ecosystems: less abundant coral reefs, sea grasses and
mangroves (important fish nurseries); fewer, smaller fish; a breakdown in food chains; changes in the distribution of marine
life; and more frequent diseases and pests among marine organisms.¶ ¶ Additionally, the distribution and abundance of
phytoplankton communities throughout the world, as well as their phenology and productivity, are changing in response to warming, acidifying,
and stratifying oceans. The annual primary production of the world's oceans has decreased by at least 6% since the early 1980s, with nearly
70% of this decline occurring at higher latitudes and with large relative decreases occurring within Pacific and Indian ocean gyres. Overall, these
changes in the primary production of the oceans have profound implications for the marine biosphere, carbon sinks, and biogeochemistry of
Earth.¶ ¶ Among the most clear and profound influences of CLIMATE CHANGE on the world's oceans are its impacts on habitat-forming species
such as corals, sea grass, mangroves, salt marsh grasses, and oysters. Collectively, these organisms form the habitat for thousands of other
species. Although some resident species may not have absolute requirements for these habitats, many do, and they disappear if the habitat is
removed. For example, mass coral bleaching and mortality, the result of increasing temperatures, is already reducing
the richness and density of coral reef fishes and other organisms. ¶ ¶ What strikes me the most about the recent science coming
out on this topic, is the DEGREE to which we are modifying fundamental physical and biological processes by warming the oceans. The
warming doesn't just kill sensitive species, it modifies everything from enzyme kinetics, to plant photosynthesis
and animal metabolism, to the DEVELOPMENTAL rate and dispersal of larval (baby) fish to changing the ways food
webs and ecosystems function. And the big surprise, at least to me, is how quickly this is all happening. We are actually witnessing
these changes before we predict or model them. This isn't theoretical; this is a huge, real-world problem. Moreover, we, not just our
children, will be paying the price if we don't get a handle on this problem very soon.
AT: Algae/Phytoplankton/Biological growth
Tech solves—Regulators would use models to adjust OTEC development to minimize
excessive biological growth
Makai Ocean engineering No Date (an ocean engineering company focused on providing design
engineering and development services to a broad range of clientele both foreign and domestic. Practice areas
include engineering for ocean based RENEWABLE ENERGY including OTEC, “OTEC – Ocean Thermal Energy
Conversion”, Makai Ocean engineering, from an assessment report of OTEC, http://www.makai.com/otec-oceanthermal-energy-conversion/, Accessed 7/8/14, MB)
Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) uses large flows of warm surface seawater and cold deep seawater to generate clean electricity. The
tropical ocean at a typical OTEC site has two distinct layers: a warm surface layer with low nutrient levels, and a cold deep layer that is nutrientrich. Introducing deep nutrients into the ocean’s sun-lit upper layers could potentially increase plankton growth or cause algal blooms. Thus,
seawater discharged from an OTEC plant should be returned into the ocean deep enough so that these nutrients don’t trigger biological
growth.¶ The U.S. Department of Energy has released a report describing the simulated biological impact from operating large OTEC plants. The
study was performed by Makai Ocean Engineering under a cost-shared GRANT and can be downloaded here. This report has been peer
reviewed by DoE Peer Review for Marine & Hydrokinetic Energy Devices on pages xii and 167 here.¶ This new SOFTWARE is the most
sophisticated tool for modeling OTEC’s environmental effects to date. When run with an OTEC plant, the model
can determine the size, depth, and flows of the OTEC plant’s seawater discharges that would minimize plankton
increases. In all cases modeled in Hawaiian waters, no increase in plankton levels occurred in the upper 40 meters (130 ft)
of the ocean. From 40 to 120 meters (130 – 400 ft) OTEC-induced plankton growth is low and well within the
naturally occurring variability. These results suggest that suitably designed large OTEC plants will cause no
significant increase in biological growth. This model will be important to developers and regulators as
commercial OTEC develops.
Phytoplankton are key to marine ecosystems
WESTENSKOW 8 (Rosalie, correspondent for UPI, “Acidic oceans may tangle food chain”, UPI 6/6/8,
http://www.upi.com/Energy_Resources/2008/06/06/Acidic_oceans_may_tangle_food_chain/UPI84651212763771/print/, accessed 7/9/14, MB)
Although most of the concern about carbon emissions has focused on the atmosphere and resulting temperature changes, accumulation of
carbon dioxide in the ocean also could have disturbing outcomes, experts said at the hearing, which examined legislation that would create a
PROGRAM to study how the ocean responds to increased carbon levels.¶ ¶ Ocean surface waters quickly absorb carbon dioxide from the
atmosphere, so as carbon concentrations rise in the skies, they also skyrocket in the watery depths that cover almost 70 percent of the planet.
As carbon dioxide increases in oceans, the acidity of the water also rises, and this change could affect a wide
variety of organisms, said Scott Doney, senior scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, a non-profit RESEARCH institute
based in Woods Hole, Mass.¶ ¶ "Greater acidity slows the growth or even dissolves ocean plant and animal shells built from calcium carbonate,"
Doney told representatives in the House Committee on Energy and the Environment. "Acidification thus threatens a wide range of
marine organisms, from microscopic plankton and shellfish to massive coral reefs."¶ ¶ If small organisms, like phytoplankton, are
knocked out by acidity, the ripples would be far-reaching, said David Adamec, head of ocean sciences at the National Aeronautics
and Space Administration.¶ ¶ "If the amount of phytoplankton is reduced, you reduce the amount of photosynthesis
going on in the ocean," Adamec told United Press International. "Those little guys are responsible for half of the oxygen you're
breathing right now."¶ ¶ A hit to microscopic organisms can also bring down a whole food chain . For instance, several
years ago, an El Nino event wiped out the phytoplankton near the Galapagos Islands. That year, juvenile bird and seal populations almost
disappeared. If ocean acidity stunted phytoplankton populations like the El Nino did that year, a similar result would occur -- but it
would last for much longer than one year, potentially leading to extinction for some species, Adamec said.¶ ¶ While it's clear
increased acidity makes it difficult for phytoplankton to thrive, scientists don't know what level of acidity will result in catastrophic damages,
said Wayne Esaias, a NASA oceanographer.¶ ¶ "There's no hard and fast number we can use," he told UPI.¶ ¶ In fact, although scientists can
guess at the impacts of acidity, no one's sure what will happen in reality. Rep. Roscoe Bartlett, R-Md., pointed to this uncertainty at Thursday's
hearing.¶ ¶ "The ocean will be very different with increased levels of carbon dioxide, but I don't know if it will be better or worse," Bartlett said.
AT Algal Blooms
No Algal blooms- most recent studies prove
OTEC Foundation 12 OTEC Foundation is a nonprofit that advocates for the development of Ocean Thermal
Energy conversion technology, “OTEC Bioplume report released”, otecnews.org, 12/4/12,
http://www.otecnews.org/2012/12/otec-bioplume-report-released//OF
Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) uses large flows of warm surface seawater and cold deep seawater to generate clean
electricity. The tropical ocean at a typical OTEC site has two distinct layers: a warm surface layer with low nutrient levels, and a cold deep
layer that is nutrient-rich. Introducing deep nutrients into the ocean’s sun-lit upper layers could potentially increase
plankton growth or cause algal blooms. Thus, seawater discharged from an OTEC plant should be returned into the ocean
deep enough so that these nutrients don’t trigger biological growth . The U.S. Department of Energy has released a report
describing the simulated biological impact from operating large OTEC plants. The study was performed by Makai Ocean Engineering
under a cost-shared grant and can be downloaded here. This new software is the most sophisticated tool for modeling OTEC’s
environmental effects to date. When run with an OTEC plant, the model can determine the size, depth, and flows of the OTEC plant’s
seawater discharges that would minimize plankton increases. In all cases modeled in Hawaiian waters, no increase in plankton
levels occurred in the upper 40 meters (130 ft) of the ocean. From 40 to 120 meters (130 – 400 ft) OTEC-induced plankton
growth is low and well within the naturally occurring variability. These results suggest that suitably designed large OTEC plants will
cause no significant increase in biological growth. This model will be important to developers and regulators as commercial OTEC
develops. A brief video illustrates earlier modeling work done with this program.
AT BioD Impact
No impact to the environment
Brook, Adelaide professor, 2013 (Barry, “Worrying about global tipping points distracts from real planetary threats”, 3-4,
http://bravenewclimate.com/2013/03/04/ecological-tipping-points/)
We argue that at the global-scale, ecological “tipping points”
and threshold-like “planetary boundaries” are
improbable. Instead, shifts in the Earth’s biosphere follow a gradual, smooth pattern. This means that it might
be impossible to define scientifically specific, critical levels of biodiversity loss or land-use change. This has important consequences for both
science and policy. Humans are causing changes in ecosystems across Earth to such a degree that there is now broad agreement that we live in
an epoch of our own making: the Anthropocene. But the question of just how these changes will play out — and especially whether we might
be approaching a planetary tipping point with abrupt, global-scale consequences — has remained unsettled. A tipping point occurs when an
ecosystem attribute, such as species abundance or carbon sequestration, responds abruptly and possibly irreversibly to a human pressure, such
as land-use or climate change. Many local- and regional-level ecosystems, such as lakes,forests and grasslands, behave this way. Recently
however, there have been several efforts to define ecological tipping points at the global scale. At a local scale, there are definitely warning
signs that an ecosystem is about to “tip”. For the terrestrial biosphere, tipping points might be expected if ecosystems across Earth respond in
similar ways to human pressures and these pressures are uniform, or if there are strong connections between continents that allow for rapid
diffusion of impacts across the planet. These criteria are, however, unlikely to be met in the real world. First, ecosystems
on
different continents are not strongly connected. Organisms are limited in their movement by oceans and
mountain ranges, as well as by climatic factors, and while ecosystem change in one region can affect the global circulation of, for
example, greenhouse gases, this signal is likely to be weak in comparison with inputs from fossil fuel combustion and
deforestation. Second, the responses of ecosystems to human pressures like climate change or land-use change
depend on local circumstances and will therefore differ between locations. From a planetary perspective, this diversity
in ecosystem responses creates an essentially gradual pattern of change, without any identifiable tipping
points. This puts into question attempts to define critical levels of land-use change or biodiversity loss scientifically. Why does this matter?
Well, one concern we have is that an undue focus on planetary tipping points may distract from the vast ecological
transformations that have already occurred. After all, as much as four-fifths of the biosphere is today characterised by ecosystems
that locally, over the span of centuries and millennia, have undergone human-driven regime shifts of one or more kinds. Recognising this reality
and seeking appropriate conservation efforts at local and regional levels might be a more fruitful way forward for ecology and global change
science. Corey Bradshaw (see also notes published here on ConservationBytes.com) Let’s not get too distracted by the title of the this article –
Does the terrestrial biosphere have planetary tipping points? – or the potential for a false controversy. It’s important to be clear that the planet
is indeed ill, and it’s largely due to us. Species are going extinct faster than they would have otherwise. The planet’s climate system is being
severely disrupted; so is the carbon cycle. Ecosystem services are on the decline. But – and it’s a big “but” – we have to be wary of claiming the
end of the world as we know it, or people will shut down and continue blindly with their growth and consumption obsession. We as scientists
also have to be extremely careful not to pull concepts and numbers out of thin air without empirical support. Specifically, I’m referring to the
latest “craze” in environmental science writing – the idea of “planetary tipping points” and the related
“planetary boundaries”. It’s really the stuff of Hollywood disaster blockbusters – the world suddenly shifts into a
new “state” where some major aspect of how the world functions does an immediate about-face. Don’t get me wrong: there are plenty of
localised examples of such tipping points, often characterised by something we call “hysteresis”. Brook defines hysterisis as: a situation where
the current state of an ecosystem is dependent not only on its environment but also on its history, with the return path to the original state
being very different from the original development that led to the altered state. Also, at some range of the driver, there can exist two or more
alternative states and “tipping point” as: the critical point at which strong nonlinearities appear in the relationship between ecosystem
attributes and drivers; once a tipping point threshold is crossed, the change to a new state is typically rapid and might be irreversible or exhibit
hysteresis. Some of these examples include state shifts that have happened (or mostly likely will) to the cryosphere, ocean thermohaline
circulation, atmospheric circulation, and marine ecosystems, and there are many other fine-scale examples of ecological systems shifting to
new (apparently) stable states. However, claiming that we are approaching a major planetary boundary for our
ecosystems (including human society), where we witness such transitions simultaneously across the globe, is simply not upheld by
evidence. Regional tipping points are unlikely to translate into planet-wide state shifts. The main reason is that
our ecosystems aren’t that connected at global scales.
No impact to bio-diversity loss - their ev is bad science
Hance, Mongabay senior writer, 2013
(Jeremy, “Warnings of global ecological tipping points may be overstated”, 3-5,
http://news.mongabay.com/2013/0305-hance-tipping-points.html#r2IbUBDMyux2eU7i.99)
There's little evidence that the Earth is nearing a global ecological tipping point , according to a new Trends in Ecology and
Evolution paper that is bound to be controversial. The authors argue that despite numerous warnings that the Earth is headed toward an
ecological tipping point due to environmental stressors, such as habitat loss or climate change, it's unlikely this will occur anytime soon—at
least not on land. The paper comes with a number of caveats, including that a global tipping point could occur in marine ecosystems due to
ocean acidification from burning fossil fuels. In addition, regional tipping points, such as the Arctic ice melt or the Amazon rainforest drying out,
are still of great concern. "When others have said that a planetary critical transition is possible/likely, they've done so
without any underlying model (or past/present examples, apart from catastrophic drivers like asteroid strikes)," lead author
Barry Brook and Director of Climate Science at the University of Adelaide told mongabay.com. "It’s just speculation and we’ve
argued [...] that this conjecture is not logically grounded. No one has found the opposite of what we suggested—they’ve
just proposed it." According to Brook and his team, a truly global tipping point must include an impact large enough to spread across the entire
world, hitting various continents, in addition to causing some uniform response. "These criteria, however, are very unlikely to be met in the real
world," says Brook. The idea of such a tipping point comes from ecological research, which has shown that some ecosystems will flip to a new
state after becoming heavily degraded. But Brook and his team say that tipping points in individual ecosystems should not be
conflated with impacts across the Earth as a whole. Even climate change, which some scientists might consider the ultimate
tipping point, does not fit the bill, according to the paper. Impacts from climate change, while global, will not be uniform
and hence not a "tipping point" as such. "Local and regional ecosystems vary considerably in their responses to climate change, and their
regime shifts are therefore likely to vary considerably across the terrestrial biosphere," the authors write. Barry adds that, "from a planetary
gradual pattern of change, without any
identifiable tipping points." The paper further argues that biodiversity loss on land may not have the large-scale
perspective, this diversity in ecosystem responses creates an essentially
impacts that some ecologists argue, since invasive species could potentially take the role of vanishing ones . "So
we can lose the unique evolutionary history (bad, from an intrinsic viewpoint) but not necessarily the role they
impart in terms of ecosystem stability or provision of services," explains Brook. The controversial argument goes
against many scientists' view that decreased biodiversity will ultimately lessen ecological services, such as pollination, water purification, and
carbon sequestration.
Fragility theories are wrong – the loss of single species won’t cascade and nature
won’t implode
Kareiva et al, Chief Scientist and Vice President, The Nature Conservancy, 12 (Peter, Michelle
Marvier, professor and department chair of Environment Studies and Sciences at Santa Clara University, Robert Lalasz, director of science
communications for The Nature Conservancy, Winter, “Conservation in the Anthropocene,”
http://thebreakthrough.org/index.php/journal/past-issues/issue-2/conservation-in-the-anthropocene/)
As conservation became a global enterprise in the 1970s and 1980s, the movement's justification for saving nature shifted from spiritual and
aesthetic values to focus on biodiversity. Nature was described as primeval, fragile, and at risk of collapse from too much human use and abuse.
And indeed, there are consequences when humans convert landscapes for mining, logging, intensive agriculture, and urban development and
when key species or ecosystems are lost. But ecologists and conservationists have grossly
overstated the fragility of
nature, frequently arguing that once an ecosystem is altered, it is gone forever. Some ecologists suggest that if a
single species is lost, a whole ecosystem will be in danger of collapse, and that if too much biodiversity is lost,
spaceship Earth will start to come apart. Everything, from the expansion of agriculture to rainforest destruction to changing waterways,
has been painted as a threat to the delicate inner-workings of our planetary ecosystem. The fragility trope dates back, at least, to Rachel
Carson, who wrote plaintively in Silent Spring of the delicate web of life and warned that perturbing the intricate balance of nature could have
disastrous consequences.22 Al Gore made a similar argument in his 1992 book, Earth in the Balance.23 And the 2005 Millennium Ecosystem
Assessment warned darkly that, while the expansion of agriculture and other forms of development have been overwhelmingly positive for the
world's poor, ecosystem degradation was simultaneously putting systems in jeopardy of collapse.24 The trouble for conservation is
that the data simply do not support the idea of a fragile nature at risk of collapse. Ecologists now know that the
disappearance of one species does not necessarily lead to the extinction of any others, much less all
others in the same ecosystem. In many circumstances, the demise of formerly abundant species can be
inconsequential to ecosystem function. The American chestnut, once a dominant tree in eastern North America, has been extinguished by a
foreign disease, yet the forest ecosystem is surprisingly unaffected. The passenger pigeon, once so abundant that its flocks darkened the sky,
went extinct, along with countless other species from the Steller's sea cow to the dodo, with no catastrophic or even measurable effects. These
stories of resilience are not isolated examples -- a thorough review of the scientific literature identified 240 studies
of ecosystems following major disturbances such as deforestation, mining, oil spills, and other types of pollution. The abundance
of plant and animal species as well as other measures of ecosystem function recovered, at least partially, in 173 (72
percent) of these studies.25 While global forest cover is continuing to decline, it is rising in the Northern Hemisphere, where "nature" is
returning to former agricultural lands.26 Something similar is likely to occur in the Southern Hemisphere, after poor countries achieve a similar
level of economic development. A 2010 report concluded that rainforests that have grown back over abandoned agricultural
land had 40 to 70 percent of the species of the original forests.27 Even Indonesian orangutans, which were widely thought to be
able to survive only in pristine forests, have been found in surprising numbers in oil palm plantations and degraded lands.28 Nature is so
resilient that it can recover rapidly from even the most powerful human disturbances. Around the Chernobyl
nuclear facility, which melted down in 1986, wildlife is thriving, despite the high levels of radiation.29 In the Bikini Atoll, the site of
multiple nuclear bomb tests, including the 1954 hydrogen bomb test that boiled the water in the area, the number of coral species has actually
increased relative to before the explosions.30 More recently, the
massive 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico was
degraded and consumed by bacteria at a remarkably fast rate.31 Today, coyotes roam downtown Chicago, and
peregrine falcons astonish San Franciscans as they sweep down skyscraper canyons to pick off pigeons for their next meal. As we destroy
habitats, we create new ones: in the southwestern United States a rare and federally listed salamander species seems specialized to live in
cattle tanks -- to date, it has been found in no other habitat.32 Books have been written about the collapse of cod in the Georges Bank, yet
recent trawl data show the biomass of cod has recovered to precollapse levels.33 It's doubtful that books will be written about this cod
recovery since it does not play well to an audience somehow addicted to stories of collapse and environmental apocalypse. Even that
classic symbol of fragility -- the polar bear, seemingly stranded on a melting ice block -- may have a good chance of surviving
global warming if the changing environment continues to increase the populations and northern ranges of harbor seals and harp seals.
Polar bears evolved from brown bears 200,000 years ago during a cooling period in Earth's history, developing a highly
specialized carnivorous diet focused on seals. Thus, the fate of polar bears depends on two opposing trends -- the decline of
sea ice and the potential increase of energy-rich prey. The history of life on Earth is of species evolving to take advantage of new
environments only to be at risk when the environment changes again. The wilderness ideal presupposes that there are parts of the world
untouched by humankind, but today it is impossible to find a place on Earth that is unmarked by human activity . The truth
is humans have been impacting their natural environment for centuries. The wilderness so beloved by conservationists -- places
"untrammeled by man"34 -- never existed, at least not in the last thousand years, and arguably even longer. The effects of human activity
are found in every corner of the Earth. Fish and whales in remote Arctic oceans are contaminated with chemical pesticides .
The nitrogen cycle and hydrological cycle are now dominated by people -- human activities produce 60 percent of all the fixed
nitrogen deposited on land each year, and people appropriate more than half of the annual accessible freshwater runoff.35 There are now
more tigers in captivity than in their native habitats. Instead of sourcing wood from natural forests, by 2050 we are expected to get over threequarters of our wood from intensively managed tree farms. Erosion, weathering, and landslides used to be the prime movers of rock and soil;
today humans rival these geological processes with road building and massive construction projects.36 All around the world, a mix of
climate change and nonnative species has created a wealth of novel ecosystems catalyzed by human activities.
There’s no impact
Boucher 98 (Doug, "Not with a Bang but a Whimper," Science and Society, Fall, http://www.driftline.org/cgibin/archive/archive_msg.cgi?file=spoon-archives/marxism-international.archive/marxisminternational_1998/marxism-international.9802&msgnum=379&start=32091&end=32412)
The political danger of catastrophism is matched by the weakness of its scientific foundation. Given the prevalence of the idea that
the entire biosphere will soon collapse, it is remarkable how few good examples ecology can provide of this
happening m even on the scale of an ecosystem, let alone a continent or the whole planet. Hundreds of ecological
transformations, due to introductions of alien species, pollution, overexploitation, climate change and even collisions with
asteroids, have been documented. They often change the functioning of ecosystems, and the abundance and diversity of their animals
and plants, in dramatic ways. The effects on human society can be far-reaching, and often extremely negative for the majority of the
population. But one feature has been a constant, nearly everywhere on earth: life goes on. Humans have been able to
drive thousands of species to extinction, severely impoverish the soil, alter weather patterns, dramatically lower
the biodiversity of natural communities, and incidentally cause great suffering for their posterity. They have not
generally been able to prevent nature from growing back. As ecosystems are transformed, species are eliminated -- but
opportunities are created for new ones. The natural world is changed, but never totally destroyed. Levins and Lewontin
put it well: "The warning not to destroy the environment is empty: environment, like matter, cannot be created or destroyed.
What we can do is replace environments we value by those we do not like" (Levins and Lewontin, 1994). Indeed, from a human point of view
the most impressive feature of recorded history is that human societies have continued to grow and develop, despite all the terrible things they
have done to the earth. Examples of the collapse of civilizations due to their over- exploitation of nature are few and far
between. Most tend to be well in the past and poorly documented, and further investigation often shows that the
reasons for collapse were fundamentally political.