The Search for Energy: Hydroelectric

A team of researchers from Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, have released a report claiming estuaries around the globe could provide 13% of the world’s energy needs. An estuary is a body of water where a river meets the sea. The research team believes that these areas where fresh water combines with salt water could provide a great amount of renewable energy. Whenever river water diffuses into salty seawater, there is a slight rise in temperature. Theoretically, this energy could be used to create electricity.

The research team focused on estuaries in attempts to find a system for generating energy from moving water that does not involve ecosystem-damaging hydroelectric dams. They have focused on the principle of entropy, where energy is created from the mixture of salt and fresh water. Traditional systems use osmotic power, where salt water draws fresh water through the membrane, causing an increase in pressure. This pressure then turns a turbine which results in the production of electricity.

The Stanford team is working on a new system which would use a battery to draw energy through a crystal lattice made from manganese dioxide nanorods. This process would allow a large surface area to be packed into a small space, creating the potential to generate large amounts of energy.

Furthermore, the system would allow salt to be gathered so it can be converted into molten salt, a product use in power plants, wastewater treatment, energy generation, and hydrogen gas production.

via Inhabitat

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