The Blue Revolution

Colloque « Politique européenne de l'énergie pour les îles et les Régions »
2000-2005-2010-2015-2025-2050

The Green Revolution was successful in advancing grain production. The Blue Revolution will do much more--seafood, natural materials, new habitats and renewable energy. The basic concept revolves around the use of a grazing OTEC powerplant to produce next generation fisheries, marine biomass plantations and hydrogen, while possibly enhancing the environment, for these powerplants will be located in portions of the ocean where hurricanes/cyclones/typhoons form, and the slight drop in ocean surface temperatures show promise for minimizing the formation of these storms. Also, as deep ocean effluents are utilized in the photic zone, there is potential for absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to remediate global climate warming.

The Anton Bruun Memorial Lecture of 2004, given in Paris at the bi-annual meeting of the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO, presented by the author of this paper, proposed that the United Nations establish an international mission to coordinate the Blue Revolution. Previous and subsequent gatherings have been held to plan for the different elements of the total concept.

The presentation will report on the history of the Blue Revolution, trace the planning process, suggest funding options and speculate on the timetable for full operation. It is expected that the first floating system will cost $500 million

Fiche :	N° 70
Organisme proposeur :	Hawaii Natural Energy Institute
Pays :	ETATS UNIS