Concept Design for Offshore DOW Platform as Infra-Structure of Isolated Island Available to Purchase

DOW (Deep Ocean Water: The sea water below 200m depth) which has three major characteristics, Low Temperature, Rich Nutrient and Very Clean, is expected as a future renewable resources in the ocean. Toward the era of environment and low carbon, utilizing the ocean renewable resource is absolutely important because the land base resources are now peaking out. In order to making use of DOW effectively and economically, multi-purpose utilizing of DOW is recommended because it has many aspects of characteristics and advantages. First, Electric Power generation by OTEC (Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion) is carried out using the difference of water temperature between the cold DOW (5°C) and the warm surface water (25°C). Second, a fresh water generation by a desalination of the sea water is carried out using residual difference of temperature after OTEC operation. Third, the DOW after discharging cold temperature in the heat exchanger of fresh water generator is scattered into a photosynthetic surface layer in the sea and its nutrient enhances primary production of the sea and eventually make a rich fishing ground. Forth, Lithium and some other rare metal are absorbed from DOW by putting special filters in the continuous large quantity flow of DOW. In this paper, the multi-purpose DOW platform which generates the electric power, the fresh water, the fishes and the Lithium from only DOW and surface water is proposed as a supplier of infra-structure for an isolated island. Technical and economical feasibility study is carried out and the result is that the enough sized multi-purpose DOW platform is very feasible for the forthcoming environment era.