Skip to main content
U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

St. Croix: supplement to a source book of oceanographic properties affecting biofouling and corrosion of OTEC plants at selected sites

Technical Report ·
OSTI ID:6790280

Although St. Croix has not been designated as an area under serious consideration as a site of an early OTEC facility, there is considerable interest in the location because it is representative oceanographically of the northeastern Caribbean Sea. In addition, it fulfills the basic criteria presently established for an OTEC site (i.e., U.S. possession, depths > 1500 m, ..delta..T greater than or equal to 20/sup 0/C). Data for St. Croix are reported using the same format employed for the Straits of Florida, eastern Gulf of Mexico, Puerto Rico, Hawaii, and Guam in Craig, et al. (1978). The oceanic area north of St. Croix is well represented in the National Oceanographic Data Center's (NODC) station data files; there is reasonable seasonal coverage of salinity, temperature, oxygen and phosphate. Isolated data sets from the literature are available for currents, total suspended matter and trace metals. A recent OTEC-related experiment conducted north of the island in summer, 1977, by the University of Miami, Tracor Marine, and Battelle Pacific Northwest Laboratories has augmented the data available through standard channels. St. Croix is probably the best characterized, potential OTEC site at the present time. Measurements of temperature, salinity, currents, nutrients, dissolved oxygen, pH, and numerous microbiological characterisitcs have provided a time-series of data for a 2-1/2 month summer period. Some of the data from that experiment are included in this compilation. In addition, heat transfer, biofouling, and corrosion behavior data from simulated OTEC aluminum heat exchanger tubes were collected. Data from NODC, the open literature, and the recent St. Croix experiment are presented. The criteria for data selection included quality of the measurements, seaonal coverage, and location.

Research Organization:
Miami Univ., FL (USA). Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences
DOE Contract Number:
EY-76-C-06-1830
OSTI ID:
6790280
Report Number(s):
PNL-2483(Suppl.)
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English