{"id":2526,"date":"2009-05-01T21:06:59","date_gmt":"2009-05-01T21:06:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/casgroups.case.edu\/physics-senior-projects\/?p=2526"},"modified":"2016-06-20T14:30:33","modified_gmt":"2016-06-20T14:30:33","slug":"an-investigation-of-the-feasibility-of-a-lake-erie-based-solar-energy-heat-pump-electric-power-plant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/casgroups.case.edu\/physics-senior-projects\/an-investigation-of-the-feasibility-of-a-lake-erie-based-solar-energy-heat-pump-electric-power-plant\/","title":{"rendered":"An Investigation of the Feasibility of a Lake Erie Based Solar Energy Heat Pump Electric Power Plant"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3 align=\"center\">Jordan Murray with Iwan Alexander<\/h3>\n<h3 align=\"center\"><a href=\"\/physics-senior-projects\/files\/2009\/05\/JordanMurrayPoster.pptx\">An Investigation of the Feasibility of a Lake Erie Based Solar Energy Heat Pump Electric Power Plant<\/a><\/h3>\n<p align=\"justify\">\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 A local inventor has designed a heat engine to generate electricity from lake water.\u00a0 In his rather unspecific design, the working fluid, a low temperature liquid refrigerant, enters an evaporator where it undergoes a transition to the gaseous phase and absorbs heat from the lake water.\u00a0 The gaseous working fluid is pressurized and circulated through the system by a solar powered compressor. The refrigerant passes through a turbine, generating power, and then condenses and the cycle is repeated.<\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\">\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The basic idea proposed by Mr. Isaacs is not new and belongs to a class of geothermal and ocean energy generating devices that operate either as heat engines or heat pumps. Ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC) uses the <a title=\"Temperature\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Temperature\">temperature<\/a> difference that exists between deep and shallow water to run a <a title=\"Heat engine\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Heat_engine\">heat engine<\/a> to produce electricity. The larger the temperature difference, the greater the efficiency of the system. Evaporation limits surface temperature to about 27 \u00b0C and the subsurface water rarely falls below 5 \u00b0C. (For this case the Carnot efficiency is about 7%).\u00a0 Typically, designs achieve actual efficiencies of only about 3%.\u00a0 <\/p>\n<p>The objective of this project is to analyze the feasibility and cost-effectiveness of the proposed system and to suggest modifications that would improve the design.\u00a0 The results of the investigation will be used to advise a local charitable foundation as to whether it is worth funding development of this idea.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Jordan Murray with Iwan Alexander<a href=\"\/physics-senior-projects\/files\/2009\/05\/JordanMurrayPoster.pptx\">An Investigation of the Feasibility of a Lake Erie Based Solar Energy Heat Pump Electric Power Plant<\/a><\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\">\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 A local inventor has designed a heat engine to generate electricity from lake water.\u00a0 In his rather unspecific design, the working fluid, a low temperature liquid refrigerant, enters an evaporator where it undergoes a transition to the gaseous phase and absorbs heat from the lake water.\u00a0 The gaseous working fluid is pressurized and circulated through the system by a solar powered compressor. The refrigerant passes through a turbine, generating power, and then condenses and the cycle is repeated.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/casgroups.case.edu\/physics-senior-projects\/an-investigation-of-the-feasibility-of-a-lake-erie-based-solar-energy-heat-pump-electric-power-plant\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading&#8230; <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">An Investigation of the Feasibility of a Lake Erie Based Solar Energy Heat Pump Electric Power Plant<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":""},"categories":[81,41],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/casgroups.case.edu\/physics-senior-projects\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2526"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/casgroups.case.edu\/physics-senior-projects\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/casgroups.case.edu\/physics-senior-projects\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casgroups.case.edu\/physics-senior-projects\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casgroups.case.edu\/physics-senior-projects\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2526"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/casgroups.case.edu\/physics-senior-projects\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2526\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2722,"href":"https:\/\/casgroups.case.edu\/physics-senior-projects\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2526\/revisions\/2722"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/casgroups.case.edu\/physics-senior-projects\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casgroups.case.edu\/physics-senior-projects\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casgroups.case.edu\/physics-senior-projects\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}