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301 points pseudolus | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.208s | source
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elil17 ◴[] No.45029999[source]
They really fail to explain a key point here. The reason you colocate this with a desalination plant is because you use the super-salty wastewater from desalination as the salty side of the osmosis power plant. Then you find some wastewater which is low in salt (such as semi-treated sewage), and use that as the fresh side of the osmosis power plant.

The end result is that the salty wastewater is partially diluted, which means it has a lower environmental impact when it is discharged to the ocean.

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tempestn ◴[] No.45032060[source]
Yeah, this is the coolest part. The leftover brine from desalination is generally just a problem. It's harmful to the marine habitat if you just put it back into the ocean, and there isn't a lot else good to be done with it. (Basically you have to dilute it first.) But this way you get useful work out of the dilution!

The article also doesn't say if it produces more power than the attached desalination plant requires. I doubt it as you'd be getting close to a perpetual motion machine if so. In which case basically what you've got is a very energy efficient desalination plant, more than a power plant.

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blix ◴[] No.45032755[source]
Fukuoka's desalination plant treats about 16400 m^3 of water per day. Assuming 3kWh per m^3 of water, this works out to a time-averaged power consuption of ~2000kW.

The osmotic power plant generates about 100kW, so it's about 5% of the total desalination energy requirement.

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1. rileyphone ◴[] No.45035039[source]
According to this delightful overview [1] of the desalination plant, the capacity overall is 12000kW so that's definitely close enough.

1. https://www.niph.go.jp/soshiki/suido/pdf/h21JPUS/abstract/r9...