World´s First Osmotic Power Plant to Open in Norway
Norway: After a decade of research European renewable energy giant Statkraft has announced that they will be opening the first osmotic power plant in the world not far from Oslo. Crown Princess Mette-Marit will open the plant.
Osmotic power is generated by salt water and fresh water mixing. The technology is quiet, non-polluting, and could produce half or the EU's power requirements. The first plant will be for research but a commercial plant is planned.
"In an era of major climate change and an increasing need for clean energy, we are proud to be presenting a renewable energy source which has never been harnessed until now," said Bard Mikkelsen, Statkraft's CEO.
Freshwater and saltwater have pressure differences. If you introduce them together in a chamber (when they are initially separated) freshwater will flow to the saltwater side. They are harnessing this movement.
except that it depletes the world most valuable resource; freshwater. its product is brackish water, which would require more desalination plants to off-set its effects, desalination plants aren´t green at all.
which is GREAT for business, as long as your business is the sale or service/delivery/treatment of fresh water, at that point such businesses can jack up prices to rediculas levels and people would HAVE to pay whatever the price was... not any different than electricity prices for people that can´t afford energy indendence, or gasoline during a shortage (a week of and half of the week after hurricane katrina), gas prices were litterally almost doubled from just under 70 cents a litre to $1.29 (and 9/10th of a cent, gas station had to either upgrade their price boards to accomadate the high prices using an extra digit or tape keep taping peices of cardboard with the new last digit on it next to the price board)...
just imagine the day this happens to water... and it eventually will; i have no doubt about that, unless somehow corporate greed can be globally removed, atleast from such vital areas.
tidal power is a much better way to harness power from water, as it doesn´t change the water being used, and better yet, doesn´t need fresh water at all.
Maybe someone familiar with his can explain, where will the fresh water come from? aren´t we predicting some shortage of fresh water soon? Are they setting up large deslination farms?
This power plant uses osmosis (http://en.wikipedia.org/) to generate pressure, and then uses that pressure to drive a turbine. When a river flows into the sea, fresh water mixes with salt water, releasing useless energy in the form of heat. What this plant does is interrupt that process, so that useful energy can be extracted. But the end result is the same either way: the fresh water mixes with the salty water.
look up brackish water... or for that matter everything related that you seem not to understand... namely "can you drink brackish water?" which is the by-product of this mixing, the answer is no.
so EC, i´m not wrong... you just lack understanding about it and its consequences...
and yes i does happen constantly in nature, lots of marine life can live in brackish water... we even use it in marine life farms, namely prawn farms... but the bottom line is brack water isn´t fresh water and hence we can´t drink it.... hence why deserts have desalination plants.
if you going to call me out as wrong at least make sure you know what your talking about , more than just "it happens in nature" which you´ll note i never said it didn´t.
for something that should be common sense (aside from the actual term "brackish"): http://en.wikipedia.org/ the funny thing is it was also in YOUR own sourse under "Osmotic gradient" read the last paragraph of that section: "Eventually, the force of the column of water on the hypertonic side of the semipermeable membrane will equal the force of diffusion on the hypotonic (the side with a lesser concentration) side, creating equilibrium. When equilibrium is reached, water continues to flow, but it flows both ways in equal amounts as well as force, therefore stabilizing the solution."
this the first two paragraphs of my source: "Osmotic power or salinity gradient power is the energy retrieved from the difference in the salt concentration between seawater and river water. Two practical methods for this are Reverse electrodialysis (RED), and Pressure retarded osmosis (PRO).
Both processes rely on osmosis with ion specific membranes. The key waste product is brackish water. This byproduct is the result of natural forces that are being harnessed: the flow of fresh water into seas that are made up of salt water."
You´re wrong. Yes, we can´t drink the water that flows from the Thames into the sea. Do you really want to?
Somehow, you seem to have it in your head that we´re talking about destroying a valuable freshwater resource. We´re not. We´re talking about the natural process by which river water mixes with sea water in river deltas all over the world. This water will mix. This water should mix. This water sustains a lot of unique life. Despite your impression, brackish water is not some unnatural unholy concoction.
The only question is: do we want to extract energy from this natural and important process, or do we want the energy to go to waste?
I don´t think you´re considering what such a plant at the mouth of the amazon could accomplish. This is not water that we must first desalinate and then mix with sea water. This is energy that was desalinated by natural processes and well on it´s way to dumping that energy into the sea.
this is already done... the effects are known despite outlandish unfounded criticism like "Despite your impression, brackish water is not some unnatural unholy concoction."
which is completely contrary to what i´ve already said
is they harness a natural process that fine... but they´ll not likely be able to commercial it in as it naturally occurs and hence have to takes more fresh water to unnaturally depulicate that process.
the point IS brackish water is not fresh water and not particularly safe to drink... hence it uses up a natural resources...
seriously i don´t get how people cannot understand these things most basic effects and yet have the gull to talk about it as if they are an expect.
yes brackish water sustains marine like i NEVER said otherwise.... but its not fresh water and does use fresh water to make... and in a closed environment (like a power planet would be) to will salinate the fresh water until it rreaches an equilibrium with the salt water...
bloody hell EC it was in your own source proving you didn´t even bother to read yourn own source, much less understand this topic on any broad level.
if they can harness it when it is a natural process then there if no side effect, but if they are duplicating the process the obviously will be. and i´ve clearly outline those side effects...
and it should be noted as another user already mentioned globally there is already water shortages;so some places already can´t afford to use their freshwater for such a use.
Its obvious that these plants are setup where fresh water meets the sea.
Directly from the source: "Osmotic power plants can, theoretically be built wherever fresh water runs into the sea, and they produce no noise or pollution emissions, the Norway Post reported"
Yeah you are right that we shouldn´t waste fresh water, and i´m always right if I say that the sky is blue, but, that doesn´t make it relevant.
in may not produce emissions but wouldn´t setting up these plants in esturaries and deltas where fish breed/spawn be deterimental to fish stocks which are already in massive decline around the world? and if you were using the natural mixing location wouldn´t that be like damming the river even if you were letting the brackish water flow out afterwards surely that will have an effect on marine life in the area.
That quite depends on the scale of the operation. If the idea was to harness *all* the energy of a given river delta, then it would obviously require something like a dam to manage. But a simple power plant would pipe in some water from the river and from the sea, put them together, and pipe the run-off into the delta. It certainly wouldn´t use anywhere near 100% of the available water. I´m sure it would have an effect on the delta, but river deltas are dynamic systems, always in flux. I imagine that the effect of the osmotic power plant would be small compared to the natural processes that affect the flow constantly.
@HAVOC666 My last comment to you addresses everything you said in ´response´ to it. I´ll spell out the most important part: River deltas create brackish water. This system puts that process to good use.
"River deltas create brackish water. This system puts that process to good use."
but the REAL question was, are they utiliizing the natural process... or recreating the natural process seperately; which would require more fresh water than the natural process already uses.
your only argueing symantics and avoiding my point of it requiring fresh water if they are recreating the process (which i assumed they were; if for nothing else than controlled conditions), i already admitted if they are only using the existing natural process than the effect should be minimal or null.
"but the REAL question was, are they utiliizing the natural process... or recreating the natural process seperately"
No, Havoc, that was never ´the question´. You assumed that they were wasting valuable freshwater, and condemned them for it. Don´t you remember saying this? "except that it depletes the world most valuable resource; freshwater."
In fact, they don´t waste freshwater. The plant will use, as I explained several times, river water and sea water in a river delta. This water was already going to mix. Nothing is lost.
You were wrong, and pigheadedly so.
I´ll say it again: The proposed osmotic power plant will be used in river deltas.
"In fact, they don´t waste freshwater. The plant will use, as I explained several times, river water and sea water in a river delta. This water was already going to mix. Nothing is lost."
IF done in CONTROLLED condition it will speed up the natural process (unless as a result of different altitudes even by a few feet that more water isn´t flowing the river from the water being displaced to the power plant which would later go to the rest of the brackish water from the natural process, so the same flow of fresh water to the ocean is maintained rather than increased by displacement though the more i think about it the displacement would be minimal by comprison to the amount of water)... and if they want to utilize osmotic where those conditions weren´t met it would actually use up fresh water for the process, hence depleting it.
there´s nothing pigheaded in pointing out things other people don´t think about...
and as i´ve now said SEVERAL time if they use the natural process (doesn´t disrupt it by displacement) the effect should be null, but IF they do disrupt it it will be using up as much fresh water was the planty is displacing at any given time.
and as i just previously said in this post even that amount of water is minimal when using natural flow.
while nothing is being lost it is using (whatever the displace amount of water is) more than the natural process, unless said displaced water in the river is the result direct result of a waterfall or something of the sort, in which case the water flow will still be constant even displite the displaced amout of water.
i´m hoping you understand my point now, if not, i´m not sure i can explain it any better.
You´re an ass. You claimed that this plant was destroying freshwater reserves. You made this claim without reservations. Please read your first post.
This plant does not destroy freshwater reserves. Ergo, you were wrong. And since you´re refusing to admit it, and hide behind claims of ´semantics´ or ´I never said what I said´, you´re pigheadedly wrong.
EC is right in this specific case and in general the negative effects you are talking about would only be achieved is someone building one of these plants decided they wanted to be a Captain Planet style villain and pollute for no good reason, there are more and sufficient places where fresh water and salt water mix naturally going out of your way to build a plant that pumps fresh and salt water to another place to mix them would be a needless waste of money for the person building the plant.
