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Limitations of Energy from Oceans
The limitations of energy that can be obtained from the oceans are:
i) Tidal Energy for which very few suitable sites are available for construction of dams
and the power generation is intermittent and not very large.
ii) Wave Energy where power output is variable, and the presently available
technologies are very expensive.
iii) Ocean Thermal Energy where the conversion efficiency is low (3% - 4%) and a lot of
capital investment is required.
Nuclear energy
Nuclear energy can be used to generate electricity by means of nuclear fission.
In a nuclear reactor, the nuclear fuel is used to carry out sustained fission chain
reaction to produce electricity at a controlled rate.
Nuclear fission
Nuclear fission is the process where a heavy atom (uranium or plutonium) is bombarded
with neutrons that split the atom to give lighter nuclei. This process releases
tremendous amounts of energy. For example, Fission of 1 atom of uranium gives 10
million times the energy of combustion of 1 atom of carbon from coal.