With winter hitting the Northern hemisphere like a snow-covered brick to the face, the annual freezing temperatures can often dampen moods and force some to sit at home, under a blanket with a good book. What might surprise and shock you is that there has been some interesting news in the energy market regarding snow. A team of researchers in Japan has been contemplating a new energy production method that requires no input from fossil fuels, or even solar and wind power, and one Japanese city may be on the brink of reshaping the global energy sector, for good.
Winter brings with it a blanket of useless snow, until now
Most people see snow as an irritation and a consequence of the freezing weather that envelops the northern hemisphere this time of the year. The vast majority of the world experiences increases in energy demand when winter rolls through, as the populace needs more energy to heat their homes and stay warm and toasty in the exceedingly cold weather.
A recent development in Japan may shift the attention of the international energy market as it searches furiously for the next energy generation process that can deliver vast amounts of energy while not placing the environment at such peril. A team of Japanese researchers has been experimenting with a new method to create energy from snow, and the process will certainly make you take a second look.
Japan gets more snowfall every year than most nations get in a decade
The Japanese city of Aomori is one of the snowiest destinations on the planet. The city, on average, gets upwards of eight meters of snow a year, forcing city officials to spend millions on clearing the excess snow from the streets and buildings that dot the city’s horizon. A team of researchers from a Japanese startup has been experimenting with the possibility of harnessing energy from the annual snowfall in Aomori.
Producing energy from ice-cold snow is a pipedream no longer
The team of researchers from information technology startup Forte Co., alongside a team from the University of Electro-Communications in Tokyo, has been experimenting with the possibility of harnessing energy from snow. The team filled a deserted swimming pool in Aomori with snow and has been testing the potential to harness vast amounts of energy from it.
The team notes that the process involves using heat pipes that draw the cold air from the snow, and another that draws in warm air from outside to the coolant inside a turbine, which uses the difference in temperatures to produce energy. The team predicts that the process will have the same energy generation capacity as solar, but at a much, much cheaper cost. As the world develops new solar power technology, the snow-powered energy project in Japan has become a reality.
“The greater the temperature differences, the greater the efficiency of power generation,” – Koji Enoki, an associate professor at the University of Electrocommunications and developer of the system
Imagine a future that is powered by snow, hard to believe, but it’s a possibility
We challenge you to offer a more exciting and groundbreaking energy technology system than the one currently being developed by the Japanese team of researchers. The new floatovoltaics technology being developed in India is a possibility; however, it pales in comparison to the astonishing development coming out of the land of the rising sun. Scaling up the process of snow-powered energy production is the major issue for the Japanese team, but expectations are that the project will continue on its path to overcome any challenges and reshape the global energy market.
