Happy Water Power?

Hydroelectricity without the human rights and environmental disasters of dams? Maybe...

“Tidal energy exploits the natural rise and fall of coastal tidal waters caused principally by the interaction of the gravitational fields of the Sun and the Moon. Some coastlines, particularly estuaries accentuate this effect creating tidal ranges of up to 11m.”

Active tidal generators exist in Hammerfest in Norway, Annapolis in Canada, in France in the estuary of La Rance near St. Malo, and Kislaya Guba on the White Sea in Russia. This article summarizes a U.S. effort.

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“Professor Thorstein Sigfusson, of the University of Iceland, says [the thermo-electric effect] works by translating the difference between the temperature of hot and cold water into energy....

In between the hot and the cold side are crystals made of semi-conductors. As the heat is transferred through these crystals part of it is converted from heat energy into electric energy.

Professor Sigfusson said there was potential for using all sorts of excess heat to fuel Thermators.” (BBC)

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Japanese researchers are working on an experiemental power plant that produces both power and clean drinking water. From the New York Times:

“The university is preparing to build an experimental power plant off the coast of Palau that brings up cold seawater from the depths of the sea to an evaporator chamber near the ocean surface.

As the water is heated by the surrounding warm surface water, it releases ammonia gas, which then drives the system’s power generator...

Meanwhile, the heated water would be transferred to a separate low-pressure chamber where it boils at a lower temperature, producing steam, which would be condensed and collected as fresh water for human consumption, leaving salt crystals behind...

‘It works well especially in the western Pacific, where the temperature difference between the ocean’s surface and deep seawater is’ as much as 43 degrees Fahrenheit, he said. ‘It is environmentally sound.’”