The 2011: IPCC Special Report on Renewable Energy Sources and
Climate Change Mitigation - Ocean Energy, states, “The resource
potential for OTEC is considered to be much larger than for
other ocean energy forms . . . Among ocean energy sources, OTEC
is one of the continuously available renewable resources that
could contribute to base-load power supply.”  It then cites a
2007 article, A Preliminary Assessment of Ocean Thermal Energy
Conversion Resources, by Gérard Nihous, University of Hawaii,
that calculated the steady-state OTEC power potential at about
44,000 TWh/yr or 5 terawatts (TW).  In 1998 a team of NYU
researchers lead by physicist Martin Hoffert concluded, the
Earth's atmospheric carbon dioxide content cannot be stabilized
without a tenfold increase in carbon-emission-free power
generation over the next 50 years.  In 1998 the world produced
1.5 TW of carbon-emission-free power and 15 years later that
output has barely increased to just over 2 TW; far short of
Hoffert’s goal of 15 TW and increasing