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Waste Water to Clean Energy: Japanese Engineers Harness the Power of ...
The pilot system will be tested for five years as engineers assess costs, maintenance and whether the technology can scale beyond a single facility.
- Engineers in the city of Fukuoka and private partners Kyowakiden Industry opened the world's second osmotic power plant, harnessing the natural process of osmosis using saline waste from a local desalination plant.
- The Fukuoka region of 2.6 million people has relied on desalination for drinking water since 2005, leaving large quantities of concentrated saline waste that Kyowakiden Industry approached the city to harness for power.
- Running at full capacity, this $4.4 million system generates up to 880,000 kilowatts annually, equivalent to 300 households' electricity consumption, and will undergo a five-year test to monitor membrane performance and maintenance.
- Engineers admitted that for now the system's power costs "a lot more" than either fossil fuel or renewable energy, yet experts see a future for this source because it operates independently of weather or light.
- Tetsuro Ueyama, research and development manager at the Nagasaki-based company, aims to build future plants five to 10 times larger and eventually utilize ordinary seawater, potentially aiding nations like Saudi Arabia.
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Japan wants to make wastewater a clean energy Admin FCE 03 Apr 2026 - 05:03 Making wastewater a clean energy: a Japanese factory exploits the natural phenomenon of osmosis to produce what could in the future become a promising alternative source of electricity.The creation of energy from osmosis - when water molecules move from a less salty solution to a more salty solution via a permeable membrane - is a long-known phenomenon.But the concrete a…
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Total News Sources23
Leaning Left2Leaning Right3Center9Last UpdatedBias Distribution64% Center
Bias Distribution
- 64% of the sources are Center
64% Center
14%
C 64%
R 22%
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