>> You’ve thought about video games but not refrigeration?
Well, look how he started: “Friends and I, in moments of drunkeness…” What would you expect? I think he was looking for answers more in the line of generating power by having hamsters running in squirrel cages. On the other hand i am having this idea that on my island power could be generated by topless girls dancing non stop. I am sure it can be done. 
I predict rebellion, civil war and massacre within six months… 
Seriously, someone has actually written a book about this very subject. But I’m damned if I can find it. I know I stumbled onto a website for it a year or so ago, at a time when I was doing some research into Micronesia/Marshall Islands, as well as living and working abroad.
Some guy had written this book, and the website owner had “purchased every copy” because he thought it was so great that he was selling them himself. All sounded a bit suss, but the book was billed as having information such as “setting up a basic sewerage system” as well as the initial legalities of finding, buying and inhabiting your island.
I hope it rings a bell with someone else because I’ve searched for it in vain for you.
I believe you’re looking for How to start your own country, by Erwin Strauss. As all other things worth pondering, this has already been discussed by the Master: How do I go about starting my own country?
Isn’t much to get. The thought that went across my mind was that people lived thousands of years without refrigeration, and since we wouldn’t be experiencing winter per se we could keep a steady food supply without storage. Video games/books are the entertainment we’d have, something that an island itself doesn’t really offer. But we can salt fish and eat kelp or seaweed without having to refrigerate it. I hadn’t thought about it because I had no plans on storing steaks over a non-existent winter. See?
sailor, thanks for your help. I know how much you enjoy alternative energy threads. It must have been hard for your to suggest wind power, but I thank you for that sacrifice. I’ll respectfully agree with you on your topless dancer idea if you promise to leave the thread or quit taking pot-shots.
Billy
Read your link.
It doesn’t matter how much 90F water you have, you can’t boil an egg with it. There is no using the heat from the water to directly cook your food.
You use the warm water to vaporize a fluid. The low pressure vapor spins a turbine to produce electicity. You condense the vapor with cool water. The electricity left after operating all of the pumps can be used for cooking or other uses. This does not violate thermo laws since it is not closed, it requires an outside source of both warm and cool water.
It look like it would always require a battery to get the system to start up when it is shut down for maintenance.