It seems that there is no end to creative ways of harnessing energy, once we put our minds to the challenge. Many of them will fall by the wayside, but that's in the nature of innovation. Here are two new ones.
Using salt water to generate electricity. Dutch engineer Joost Veer figures where the Rhine flows into the North Sea, the estuary could easily provide over a gigawatt of electricity by a process they've called Blue Energy - enough to supply about 650,000 homes. And other estuaries can do the same.
"Salinity power" exploits the chemical differences between salt and fresh water, and this project only hints at the technology's potential: from the mouth of the Ganges to the Mississippi delta, almost every large estuary could produce a constant flow of green electricity, day and night, rain or shine, without damaging sensitive ecosystems or threatening fisheries
(see map). One estimate has it that salinity power could eventually become a serious power player, supplying as much as 7 per cent of today's global energy needs.
Another one is to use mini-turbines to harness energy from the pressure in gas pipelines in the UK:
Work to place small turbines inside the gas network will start later this year at Beckton in east London. This first scheme will produce 20MW by 2010 from the natural gas that rushes through the pipes. Repeated across the country, the technology could generate up to 1GW – equivalent to the output of a conventional coal or nuclear power station.
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