Norway Develops Osmotic Electricity

Now, I don't claim to understand osmotic electricity. I'll leave that to Reuters (via BoingBoing):

The plant is driven by osmosis that naturally draws fresh water across a membrane and toward the seawater side. This creates higher pressure on the sea water side, driving a turbine and producing electricity.

Sounds good, right? Streams and rivers flow into oceans all over the world. All the time. Regardless of the weather, unlike wind and solar.

I love this story for its obvious GHG-reducing potential, but I really love it for Norway's hype-free approach. Maggie at BoingBoing agrees:

I have to give a shoutout to the Norwegians for not claiming that their osmosis-based generator will magically solve the world's energy problems--instead describing it as part of a mix of different technologies that, together, could make a difference.

Those Norwegians...clever and humble!

To be clear, they speculate that the "difference" osmotic power could make globally constitutes about half of the EU's demand. That's certainly impressive, however, it's obviously that conservation efforts still need to come first.

So I'm unplugging my computer now.