@itsnicconley · Nic Conley
Saved 2026-05-15 · Posted 2026-04-15 · Status: New
Japan just figured out how to turn saltwater into electricity and it runs twenty-four hours a day without stopping
Meet Kenji Hirokawa director of the Fukuoka Seawater Desalination Center which became the site of Japans first osmotic power plant only the second facility of its kind ever built in the world and thats where clean energy just solved its biggest problem Freshwater and concentrated saltwater are placed on opposite sides of a membrane Water naturally moves toward the saltier side That movement builds pressure The pressure spins a turbine No fuel no combustion no CO2 and unlike solar or wind it doesnt stop when the sun goes down
Heres where it gets insane The plant generates eight hundred and eighty thousand kilowatt hours a year powering around two hundred and twenty homes and running a desalination facility supplying drinking water to two point six million people The saltwater used is brine waste from the desalination process itself turning a byproduct that used to damage marine ecosystems into a power source
But the craziest part the oceans cover ninety-seven percent of the planets surface This technology works anywhere in the world where freshwater meets saltwater The worlds biggest untapped power source has been sitting in plain sight the entire time
**Hashtags:**
#KenjiHirokawa #OsmoticPower #KenjiFukuoka #OsmoticSeawater #KenjiDesalination
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Comments (15)
So we are not boiling water this time
Super inefficient, and polutes fresh water
First One was built in Norway 17 years ago, wasn‘t efficient enough through complications with aligning the nanotubes of the semipermeable membrane. Has the useful value here increased?
Oceans cover 71% of the earth's surface. We need the fresh water to grow crops bring it on Japan help everyone out of droughts
What I really wanna know is how Japan is turning their footsteps into electricity??
Protect that technology and the scientists!
But you have to keep up the freshwater, a scarce resource to it.
Is it producing more de-salinated water than the fresh water consumed?
so let me understand. it de salinate sea water and than use fresh water to run a generator? why not give the fesh water directly?
Where does the fresh water come from?
Incredible, yet why is it that these efficient and innovative discoveries seem to get developed everywhere but in the USA?😮🥴🤔.....
this is interesting information. I'm a bit lost, so I'll go do some research. fresh to salt h20 (by osmo) causes pressure to move turbine, that i get. i don't get how u desalinate without using even more energy than you made? basically reversing the process of osmo.
What? Working on its own produced desalinated water? A real life perpetuum mobile?
How can we use this
GOD is GOOD!!!
Water