Abstract: A halocline is maintained in open body of salt water at a depth to which a significant amount of solar radiation penetrates by inducing an upward vertical flow in the body of water sufficient to counter wind-mixing and molecular diffusion thereby establishing an ascending or rising solar lake. The upward flow is induced by injecting into the body of water a concentrate with a density greater than the density of liquid at the lower end of the halocline, the concentrate being formed by evaporating liquid drawn from the surface of the body of water. The halocline suppresses convention currents and allows solar radiation to heat the halocline as well as a layer of liquid therebelow to temperatures significantly higher than the surface temperature. Heat for useful work can be extracted from the heat storage layer beneath the halocline.

Abstract: Heat is stored in a closed basin having a net inflow of relatively fresher water connected by a strait to a larger body of relatively saltier water by selectively controlling the exchange of water between the body and the basin as a function of the season of the year. In summer, the exchange of water is promoted thereby permitting relatively warmer and saltier water outside the basin to flow through the strait into the depths of the basin. In winter, the exchange of water between the basin and the body of water is suppressed thereby trapping warm, relatively saltier water in the lower regions of the basin, the warm water being available during the winter and being protected against heat loss by a surface layer of relatively fresher water. The heat thus stored can be utilized in various energy conversion processes such as heat pumps to raise the temperature to useful levels.

Abstract: A solar pond serving the dual purposes of concentrating an aqueous brine by evaporation and simultaneously producing power by storage of incident solar radiation. The so-stored solar energy is used by a heat machine. The solar pond has a concentrated aqueous brine which serves as the heat storage layer, and a halocline overlying the heat storage layer. An evaporation layer, whose density does not exceed that of the upper stratum of the halocline, overlies the halocline. A heat exchanger forms a part of a heat machine, and includes an organic, water-emiscible operating fluid as heat carrier, means for withdrawing hot brine from the heat storage layer to the heat exchanger, means for returning brine from the heat exchanger to the heat storage layer, a condenser for the operating fluid adapted for the throughflow of an aqueous coolant as heat sink, and means for feeding a warmed coolant emerging from the condenser to the evaporation layer.

Abstract: Water is raised from a lower to a higher level by creating an air/water-droplet environment which is effective to establish a pressure head that imparts an upward velocity to the air in excess of the downward drift velocity of the droplets whereby the latter are carried upwardly by the air. Such an environment is created by introducing droplets of relatively warm water into relatively cool air at the lower end of a vertically oriented lift tower thereby heating the air which rises in the lift tower with a velocity sufficient to carry the droplets to the upper end of the lift tower. By directing the flow at the upper end of the lift tower toward the horizontal, the upwardly directed velocity component of the droplets is lost and they follow a ballistic path into a reservoir from which water is returned to the lower level through a hydraulic turbine.

Abstract: A segregated solar pond includes an upper level of water overlying a lower level of water, and an impermeable barrier interposed between the two levels for preventing intermixing. The average density of the upper level exceeds the average density of the upper level. Floats on the periphery of the upper level buoyantly support it on the surface of a larger body of water connected to the lower level. The upper level contains dissolved salts establishing a halocline that renders the upper level non-convective such that it is heated by absorption of solar radiation, the heat being transferred to the lower level by conduction across the barrier. Vertical curtains attached to the periphery of the barrier inhibit mixing of the water in the lower level with the water in the larger body of water such that the lower level constitutes a heat storage layer.The barrier between the two layers includes a sheet of flexible material and a frame supporting the same rigidly connected to the floats.

Abstract: The weather near a continental arid zone is modified by increasing the heat storage of the seas westwardly of the arid zone during the summer. The heat storage is increased by mixing the relatively warmer surface water with relatively cooler deeper water thereby reducing the surface temperature of the seas during the summer. Cooling the surface of the water will increase the radiant heat flux due to solar radiation and decrease the radiant heat loss from the surface during the summer thus increasing the amount of heat stored in the water an available for evaporation during the winter. Mixing is achieved by pumping water from a lower level in the seas to the upper level. In one embodiment of the invention, normal wave motion provides the mode of power for the pumping operation. In another embodiment, mixing is achieved by a paddle that is operated by wave motion.

Abstract: Make-up water contaminated with nutrients is pretreated by establishing a stagnant pond of brackish water having an upper wind-mixed layer exposed to solar radiation and of relatively low, uniform salinity, an intermediate halocline whose salinity increases monotonically with depth, and a lower collection layer of relatively high, uniform salinity. Make-up water contaminated with nutrients is added to the wind-mixed layer wherein the nutrients support the growth of photosynthetic microbes. The wind-mixed layer is provided with Artemia salina (brine shrimp) that feed on the photosynthetic microbes growing in the wind-mixed layer and extrude fecal pellets of a density in excess of the density of at least the upper layer of the pond, whereby the pellets sink below the wind-mixed layer, and preferably to the collection layer. Upward diffusion from the collection layer into the wind-mixed layer of the disintegrated constituents of the fecal pellets is suppressed by reason of the stratified nature of the halocline.

Abstract: A halocline is maintained in open body of salt water at a depth to which a significant amount of solar radiation penetrates by inducing an upward vertical flow in the body of water sufficient to counter wind-mixing and molecular diffusion thereby establishing an ascending or rising solar lake. The upward flow is induced by injecting into the body of water a concentrate with a density greater than the density of liquid at the lower end of the halocline, the concentrate being formed by evaporating liquid drawn from the surface of the body of water. The halocline suppresses convention currents and allows solar radiation to heat the halocline as well as a layer of liquid therebelow to temperatures signficantly higher than the surface temperature. Heat for useful work can be extracted from the heat storage layer beneath the halocline.

Abstract: A solar power station has a heat source in the form of the heat storage layer of a solar pond, a heat sink in the form of the wind-mixed layer of the pond covering the halocline interposed between the heat storage layer and the wind-mixed layer, and a power plant associated therewith. The power plant includes a boiler responsive to water from the heat storage layer for vaporizing a working fluid, a prime mover for producing work by extracting heat from vaporized working fluid, and a condenser cooled by water from a cooling pond connected to the solar pond such that only water in the wind-mixed layer is exchanged with the cooling pond. The wind-mixed layer serves to dissipate heat from the condenser and the volume of water in the cooling pond increase the heat absorption capacity of the heat sink.

Abstract: Power is generated from a body of hot brine by injecting a liquid operating fluid, such as butane or Freon, into the brine at a depth where the hydrostatic pressure of the brine is approximately equal to the vapor pressure of the operating fluid at a temperature of the brine for producing a bubble regime in a vertically oriented lift tube whose lower end is immersed in the brine whereby working fluid is raised in the lift tube as the bubbles rise therein. The gaseous operating fluid is separated from the liquid working fluid which is returned to the body of brine, and the gaseous operating fluid is condensed in a condenser and returned in a liquid state for injection into the hot brine at the inlet of the lift tube. The working fluid that is raised in the lift tube is passed through an hydraulic turbine.

Abstract: Water is raised from a lower to a higher level by creating an air/water-droplet environment which is effective to establish a pressure head that imparts an upward velocity to the air in excess of the downward drift velocity of the droplets whereby the latter are carried upwardly by the air. Such an environment is created by introducing droplets of relatively warm water into relatively cool air at the lower end of a vertically oriented lift tower thereby heating the air which rises in the lift tower with a velocity sufficient to carry the droplets to the upper end of the lift tower. By directing the flow at the upper end of the lift tower toward the horizontal, the upwardly directed velocity component of the droplets is lost and they follow a ballistic path into a reservoir from which water is returned to the lower level through a hydraulic turbine.

Abstract: The density profile of a halocline, which increases monotonically with depth, is modified by drawing water from different levels of the halocline (and therefore of different densities) into a mixing chamber, mixing the water in the mixing chamber and discharging the water in the mixing chamber into the halocline intermediate the levels from which the water is drawn. In one technique, a closed chamber is inserted into the halocline, the chamber having a vertically oriented slot defining a preselected layer of the halocline. The contents of the chamber are mixed to establish a uniform density equal to the average density of the water in the preselected layer. As a consequence, the vertical variation in density across the slot between the water inside and outside the chamber establishes a static pressure differential which causes water in the layer to flow into and out of the chamber until the density of the layer is uniform.