Power From Sea Water Just Got Busted!
EXCERPT:
Very few U.S. patents in osmotic power generation were granted in the last four decades
.
The
most significant
attempt
in this field
was
a U.S. pa
tent
No
3,906,250
that was granted
to
Sidney
Loeb in 1975
.
This patent
describes a
method and apparatus for generating power by utilizing
“Pressure Retarded Osmosis, PRO," a terminology
that was
adopted
by
Loeb
in his work.
This
work has both historical
and conceptual value in studying salinity power.
However, the
author
of the present
article
takes exception to certain areas where
contradict
ory
or
erroneous information were presented that might undermine the value of this work
, particularly
in large
scale high salinity water applications.
Osmosis is a source of low density energy. To
harness this energy, realistic
operating parameters based on
actual field conditions
must
be
clearly defined
and
analyzed.
The subject of this article is to evaluate
seawater osmotic power potential, based on sound
engineering practices and without bias or excitement.
An attempt is made to
analyze
the
few data
points
that
w
ere
published
by
the recent Statkraft of Norway osmotic test and
further
postulate
a scenario for
generating osmotic power from the Mississippi River.
The basic theory that Statkraft of Norway has adopted in developing their osmotic power
generation pilot plant that was commissioned on November 24, 2009 is based on
Loeb’s work
.
Final assessment of th
at
pilot plant
has not been
revealed, but it is
was stated
that the system was
capable of producing 2
KW of power
at
differential head of 120 meter
s
,
employing 2000
square
meters of spiral wound membrane
(
1
).
Despite scarcity of test information, this data is sufficient to
debate
the merit
s
of freshwater
-
seawater osmosis power
generation
scenario.