Could Ocean Energy conversion be boosted by using more efficient refrigerants?
You might want to read up on Carnot Efficiency. It pretty much makes thermal ocean energy conversion an idiotic exercise in futility. In any case, all these weird schemes are probably being pushed by people who suffer from “not invented here” syndrome. Since they can’t invent solar energy any more (it has been invented) and they can’t admit to themselves that they haven’t, they are pushing brain dead proposals like that. You want thermal energy? The sun gives you close to a GW/km^2 at a thermodynamic temperature of 5600K. What else do you want? That is as hot as it gets and could be harvested with an efficiency of up to 96%.
