Mineral Extraction

Not yet exploited to its full potential is the opportunity OTEC could provide to mine ocean water for its 57 elements dissolved in solution. In the past, most economic analyses showed that mining the ocean for trace elements dissolved in solution would be unprofitable because so much energy is required to pump the large volume of water needed and because it is so expensive to separate the minerals from seawater. However, because OTEC plants will already be pumping the water economically, the only problem to solve is the cost of the extraction process. The Japanese recently began investigating the concept of combining the extraction of uranium dissolved in seawater with wave-energy technology. They found that developments in other technologies (especially materials sciences) were improving the viability of mineral extraction processes that employ ocean energy.