wiki article states "Up to 10,000 TWh/yr of power could be generated from OTEC without affecting the ocean's thermal structure". which converts to about 500GW which... isn't that much

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pezezin a day ago | parent | next [-]

10 000 TWh/yr is one third of the current total electric energy generation of the whole planet, is not a small amount.

Source, page 39 of the full report:

https://www.iea.org/reports/global-energy-review-2025/electr...

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nine_k a day ago | parent | prev [-]

This can't be correct.

10,000 TWh/y = 1e+7 GWh/y, divide it by 365.25 days/y to produce daily output of 27,379 GWh/day, then by 24 h/day to get pure power of 1,141 GW. It's still more than a terawatt, three orders of magnitude larger than the largest nuclear reactors.

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andbberger a day ago | parent [-]

oops. yes. still not that much though. i mean it's a lot but it's "one more large industrialized country" a lot not "kardashev 2" a lot

	▲	WJW 14 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Kardashev 2 has a Dyson sphere. Of course anything on a single planet can never have that much.
	▲	IAmBroom 9 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Those goalposts of yours are on a FTL ship...