ScienceRocks
Democrat all the way!
- Banned
- #1
Energy harvested from evaporation could power much of US, says study
September 26, 2017
Nature Communications finds. Credit: Columbia University">
The southern and western United States have the greatest capacity to produce evaporation-generated power from lakes and reservoirs, a new study in Nature Communications finds. Credit: Columbia University
Interesting!
September 26, 2017
Nature Communications finds. Credit: Columbia University">
The southern and western United States have the greatest capacity to produce evaporation-generated power from lakes and reservoirs, a new study in Nature Communications finds. Credit: Columbia University
Energy harvested from evaporation could power much of US, says studyIn the first evaluation of evaporation as a renewable energy source, researchers at Columbia University find that U.S. lakes and reservoirs could generate 325 gigawatts of power, nearly 70 percent of what the United States currently produces.
Though still limited to experiments in the lab, evaporation-harvested power could in principle be made on demand, day or night, overcoming the intermittency problems plaguing solar and wind energy. The researchers' calculations are outlined in the Sept. issue of Nature Communications.
"We have the technology to harness energy from wind, water and the sun, but evaporation is just as powerful," says the study's senior author Ozgur Sahin, a biophysicist at Columbia. "We can now put a number on its potential."
Interesting!