Energy Headlines

According to American scientists, converting water to steam is an effective renewable energy source. Water evaporation in all US lakes and reservoirs will generate 325 gigawatts of electricity which is 70% of all the energy produced in the country. The technology of obtaining electric power from water steam has not been studied and put on the market yet. However, scientists from the Columbia University in New York decided to calculate how effective this method would be. The mathematical model they found that the total energy capacity of all US lakes and reservoirs, except for the Great Lakes, would be 325 gigawatts which will generate 2.85 million MWt per year. By 2015, this figure could have been 70% of the total energy produced in the country. The results of the research were published in Nature Communications magazine.

The author of the study, biophysicist Ozgur Sakhin, described the technology of obtaining energy from evaporation in 2015. Its "evaporative engine" allows the use of materials, the size of which varies under the influence of water. Sakhin suggests using micro spores of bacteria that absorb moisture and increase in size. Under the influence of high temperatures water evaporates while spores become smaller. Sakhin compares spores with muscles that contract and extend. Connecting them to a generator that produces energy from the motion (dynamo-machines), it is possible to produce electricity during the evaporation process.