Operation
Continuous Base Load Power 24/7.
Suitable deep ocean currents are often in close proximity to high population centres, therefore negating the requirement to build expensive high voltage networks that solar farms and wind turbine farms require, to say nothing of the visual and environmental impact on the landscape.
Let’s review some examples of suitable deep ocean currents.
One of the largest is the Gulf Stream, which winds around Florida, up past Georgia and the Carolinas before turning toward Europe.
The Kuroshio Current starts near the Philippines, flows North past East Taiwan and eventually past Japan before heading into the North Pacific.
The California Current flows South past the state of California.
The Indonesian Flow Through flows in a South Westerly direction through the islands of Indonesia and Singapore.
The Leeuwin Current flows in a Southerly direction hugging the West Australian coast before turning east and flowing through the Great Australian Bight.
The Eastern Australian Current flows in a Southerly direction along the Great Barrier Reef, past the Sunshine Coast, Gold Coast and on to Sydney before turning East.
These currents range from 10,000,000 cubic metres per second flow rates up to 30,000,000 million cubic metres per second.
There are other deep ocean currents have power generation potential. Some are relatively small or too far from land, such as the mighty Antarctic Circumpolar Current.
Ocean water is more than 800 times denser than air, so a flow velocity of 3 to 5 knots (3.45mph to 5.75 mph or 5.56kph to 9.26 kph) would produce the equivalence of a wind speed of several hundred miles per hour.
Although these deep ocean currents don’t stop flowing, they do vary in speed between Summer and Winter and regularly create toroids whereby the velocity flowing past a Docgen may temporarily stop or reverse.
For this reason a number of Docgen power platforms connected end to end, will be required to produce a continuous base load power output.