Osmotic Pressure Power Generation

I think you have the like of Al Gore but making it a little bit faster.

http://edition.cnn.com/2016/03/31/tech/study-melting-antarctic-ice/index.html

Using the already calved icebergs for energy will have no effect on sea level;they are

already displacing the same amount of water as if they were liquid.

Think about it.

I have no like for,or resemblance to, Al Gore,

(self proclaimed inventor of the internet! ) either politically or physically.

I'm not sure how they come up with power per area. I would think you would have a number for energy per volume, maybe kwh per cubic meter, so it's hard to verify the number.

Acres of Boron Nitride nanotubes might get a little costly...

It is in the form of a membrane,and is thus measured in surface area.

1 square meter could produce 4KW, with a potential to produce 30 MWH per year.

That's a lot of juice.

At a retail average of .$10 per kwh,that is $3,000,000 per year, per square yard.

That would surely be a quick ROI for the nanotubes.

That is 1,000,000, square meters per square kilometer,which is an impossibly large amount of $$ floating around in the ocean.

The math seems to work, but I am also sceptical..there should be companies swarming all over the icebergs if what the article claims is true.

OK, that makes sense. Here is another article:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osmotic_power

It looks promising. Water from a river supplies W1 (fresh water). W2 is salty and develops a head due to osmosis which can be used to generate electricity by draining through turbine into the ocean.

It's the same process which causes fruit to lose juice when treated with sugar.

This is an entirely new method of deriving energy from the osmotic pressure.It produces electricity directly,not through water flow.

It is possible that this could be combined with the Pressure Retarded Osmosis process and get even higher total performance.

I just wonder about the volume of water required to produce 1 MW of electricity using the Boron Nitride Nanotube method?

I have been unable to find this info.

Any info on this will be appreciated.

If the volume is not great,then this could be used domestically.

Here are some ideas. I'm not sure if it's correct:

1. The molar weight of NaCl is 58.44 g / mole

https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=molar%20mass%20nacl

2. An amp = 1 mole of electrons per second

3. There is about 35 grams salt in 1 kg of seawater or 35/58.44 = or .6 mole/kg

http://antoine.frostburg.edu/chem/senese/101/solutions/faq/salinity-and-molarity.shtml

4. If 1 mole of NaCl supplies 1 mole of electrons (1 coulomb), then I would surmise that processing 1 kg per second, or 1 liter/sec of seawater would supply 0.6 amps. I don't know what the voltage would be.

How sure are you this has to follow Coulomb's law? It is not redox chemistry, but if you are referring to ion flux, then go ahead.

Yes, this new method is many orders of magnitude more efficient conversion to electric power.

I will gladly provide ice at the rock bottom price of 3K$ per cubic yard leaving 99% of the profit in tact. If you order just 100 cubic yards I will make them available to to you anywhere on the planet. I'll even put them in the ocean for you.

How long will it take to clog that?

An ice berg floats in sea water but where does the fresh water come from? Icebergs are classified as desserts because there is no water. One of the biggest energy consumers in antarctic research stations is the power required to melt the ice to recover water. Does the technology work with liquid salt water on one side of the membrane and solid fresh water on the other side? If not then your idea is (excuse the pun) dead in the water. If it does work you still have to pump the sea water onto the ice (which requires heated pumps and pipes). No membrane technology is going to survive the rough seas at the natural boundary, the cliff edge of the berg, which is also constantly eroding. Even inland (or should that be inberg) it will have to survive 150mph gales and find a way of not being buried in snow drifts.

In my last few posts I find I have been very negative. I am naturally an optimist. Will somebody please post a viable technology that I can support and enthuse about.

Latent energy of ice melting is absorbed from the heat source, not released from the ice berg, silly man!

Osmotic pressure drives have been looked at before, but never did they show this kind of efficiency. If something different is happening nanoscale, that results in highly efficient current production, then this will have merits. However, since we already can produce clean energy in a highly efficient manner, I do not expect the pollution of fresh water resources with salt to catch on any time soon. We need fresh water, not power from salt water osmoting into fresh water.