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I used to love all these creative approaches to generating energy. But over the years I noticed that none of them ever seemed to pan out. Eventually what I found was that these research efforts were just another way to get $ from the government without having to actually produce anything useful. Which explains why a company which military company is doing this sort of work.

This article, at least, was unusually honest in that it at least admitted the main problems with the idea:

“… will have to work out issues such as how to connect the floating, bobbing platforms to fixed submarine power lines. Heat exchangers will have to be designed in a way that prevents excessive buildup of algae, barnacles and other marine organisms that could clog the system.”

People have been trying to solve the excessive buildup problem (unsuccessfully) for centuries. I doubt that these guys are going to do any better. Or even try very hard. As long as they can show some supposed progress in some area or other they will continue to get money without actually have to produce anything that works.