Rivers could generate thousands of nuclear power plants worth of energy, thanks to a new ‘blue’ membrane.

Pedro_P

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Estuaries, where rivers pour freshwater into the ocean, could become giant power plants with the help of a newly made membrane.LWM/NASA/LANDSAT/Alamy Stock Photo
▼ BOSTON—Green energy advocates may soon be turning blue. A new membrane could unlock the potential of “blue energy,” which uses chemical differences between fresh- and saltwater to generate electricity. If researchers can scale up the postage stamp–size membrane in an affordable fashion, it could provide carbon-free power to millions of people in coastal nations where freshwater rivers meet the sea.
“It’s impressive,” says Hyung Gyu Park, a mechanical engineer at Pohang University of Science and Technology in South Korea who wasn’t involved with the work. “Our field has waited for this success for many years.”
Blue energy’s promise stems from its scale: Rivers dump some 37,000 cubic kilometers of freshwater into the oceans every year. This intersection between fresh- and saltwater creates the potential to generate lots of electricity—2.6 terawatts, according to one recent estimate, roughly the amount that can be generated by 2000 nuclear power plants.
There are several ways to generate power from that mixing. And a couple of blue energy power plants have been built. But their high cost has prevented widespread adoption. All blue energy approaches rely on the fact that salts are composed of ions, or chemicals that harbor a positive or negative charge. In solids, the positive and negative charges attract one another, binding the ions together. (Table salt, for example, is a compound made from positively charged sodium ions bound to negatively charged chloride ions.) In water, these ions detach and can move independently.
By pumping the positive ions—like sodium or potassium—to the other side of a semipermeable membrane, researchers can create two pools of water: one with (▪ ▪ ▪)

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niya

this looks promising.if they really can separate the salt from water ,then could it also not become drinkable water?apart from the nuclear energy perhaps this could also provide drinking water n solve the rising water crisis all over the world.

soothsayer

Ah !Thanks. This is good news. So we solve for power and then we need to go for drinking  water!

culsivaji

Although a good start, but we need to see the efficacy of various techniques, if needed it be refined through policy changes that would directly help the industry as a whole !