Its easy to make jokes about things, but I am reminded how everything we consume and ways in which we struggle to energize leaves a mark on our planet.

 

That Hawaii thermocline project bumbled along, funded by Uncle Sam (through his Dept. of Energy) for at least 25 years; they finally pulled the plug a year or two back.

Part of their problem was that they were trying to use the temperature difference across the thermocline to drive a steam-like system (but instead of using water and the heat to turn it into steam, they were using ammonia or something that "boiled" at the warm, surface-water temperature).

There are newer technologies that use solid-state circuits to generate electricity directly from temperature differences such as that across the thermocline, though, so this huge source of potential energy still offers the possibility of power generation. It's not ready for prime time, though. HPH