An Energy Conversion Method by Using Density Difference of Water

Abstract

A new method which produces electric energy by utilizing the density difference of water, by means of a “chimney effect”, is proposed. Density difference of water occurs in two ways, namely differences of water temperature and consistency of suitable materials such as salt. For instance hot water made by solar energy is pointed out as an example of the former, while fresh water of river versus sea water and sea water versus concentrated salt water may account for the latter.
This paper deals with the above three cases in the practical scale. The analysis estimates that the proposed method generates energy of several hundreds or more, ten thousands and millions kW in the respective cases. The amount of extracted energy in the third case is ompared with those of usual electric power stations by nuclear energy. The method is considered as a kind of the so-called renewable energy conversion systems which is free of CU₂, high energy density and controllable.